The Lost Masters Volume 2ACONTENTS Introduction Bibliography Novels Mel Oliver and Space Rover on Mars (Gnome Press, 1954) Short Fiction Bad Medicine (Thrilling Wonder Stories, February 1941) Light in Darkness (Thrilling Wonder Stories, Fall 1943) Skin Dupe (Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1949) Disappointment (Startling Stories, July 1950) The Sack (Astounding Science Fiction, September 1950) The Barbarians (Future Combined with Science Fiction Stories, January 1951) Vermin (Fantastic Story Magazine, Fall 1951) The Cupids of Venus (Startling Stories, November 1951) The Addicts (Galaxy Science Fiction, January 1952) Shipping Clerk (Galaxy Science Fiction, June 1952) New Universe (Startling Stories, July 1952) Runaway (Galaxy Science Fiction, November 1952) Dragon Army (Fantastic Adventures, November 1952) Forgotten Danger (Science Fiction Adventures, February 1953) The Haters (Rocket Stories, April 1953) The Weather on Mercury (Galaxy Science Fiction, July 1953) The Model of a Judge (Galaxy Science Fiction, October 1953) Country Doctor (Star Science Fiction Stories, Ballantine 1953) G'rilla (Beyond Fantasy Fiction, January 1954) Playground (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1954) Bedside Manner (Galaxy Science Fiction, May 1954) Heads You Lose (Beyond Fantasy Fiction, May 1954) Unwelcomed Visitor (If, October 1954) Dead Man's Planet (Galaxy Science Fiction, February 1955) Picture Bride (Galaxy Science Fiction, June 1955) Spoken For (Galaxy Science Fiction, July 1955) The Sly Bungerhop (Galaxy Science Fiction, September 1957) Stepping Stone (with Frederik Pohl) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1957) A Feast of Demons (Galaxy Science Fiction, March 1958) Essays The Science Stage (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1957) Memoir (Galaxy, Playboy 1980) Introduction In the days of the pulp magazines of the 1930's, 1940's and 1950's there were many gems of SF published that somehow were never anthologized or reprinted. The Lost Masters series is an attempt to provide SF fans with a taste of the roots of this genre, a hint of the heady days of pulp and booming mass markets that provided the background for some of the best stories ever written. William Morrison is a pseudonym for Joseph Samachson, who also wrote non-fiction under his own name. Very few of his stories were ever anthologized, even though there are many gems among his work. There are a lot of potboilers among his work too. For a brief outline of his life, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Samachson. Morrison symbolizes the SF writers of the 50's to me…able to craft beautiful stories, but also writing to make money. Alas, this volume does not contain his complete works; only a third of his stories are collected here (29 stories, two essays, and one novel. If anyone has copies of any stories not collected here, please contact me at gorgon776@hotmail.com. I'd like to collect the rest of these stories). One of his novels, Mel Oliver and Space Rover on Mars is here, but be warned that it was written for the juvenile market. Volume 2B will contain as many of the rest as I am able to find and scan, but for now experience the pulp writing of this lost master. Gorgon776 Bibliography of Joseph Samachson writing as William Morrison I make no claims about the completeness of this bibliography (In fact, I am almost certain it is incomplete). It as was collected from many internet and non-internet sources, and is as complete as I could make it. I included it here because there is no comprehensive list of his works anywhere that I could find. Joseph Samachson also wrote several non-fiction books by himself and with his wife Dorothy, and several graphic novels which are not listed here. Novels Mel Oliver and Space Rover on Mars (Gnome Press, 1954) Days of Creation (as Brett Sterling) (A Captain Future Novel) (see Note 1) Worlds to Come (as Brett Sterling) (A Captain Future Novel) (see Note 1) Short Fiction The Thirteenth Moon (see Note 2) The Crystal Death (see Note 2) Bad Medicine (Thrilling Wonder Stories, February 1941) Plastic Pigskin Daze (Thrilling Wonder Stories, March 1941) The Birds Tell Everything, (Thrilling Detective, Apr 1941) (ss) Crossroads of the Universe (Startling Stories, July 1941) Masters of Chance (Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1941) The Barbarians (Future Fiction, August 1941) Undersea Snatch (Captain Future, Fall 1941) (ss) Christmas on Mars (Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1941) The Man in the Moon (Startling Stories, July 1942) (ss) The Lion-Hearted (Captain Future, Summer 1942) (ss) Two Worlds to Save (Startling Stories, September 1942) (ss) Forgotten Past (Startling Stories, January 1943) (ss) Thirty-Seven Dead Men (Thrilling Adventures, October 1942) (ss) Murder Takes Nerve (Thrilling Mystery, November 1942) (ss) Don’t Tell the Police (Popular Detective, February 1943) (ss) Garments of Doom (Super Science Stories, February 1943) (ss) Good Luck Jonah (Texas Rangers, February 1943) (ss) The Great Invasion (Startling Stories, March 1943) (ss) The Invincible Wrestler (Thrilling Wonder Stories, April 1943) Flight to Death (Popular Detective, June 1943) Widow’s Choice, (Texas Rangers, August 1943) (ss) Light in Darkness (Thrilling Wonder Stories, Fall 1943) The Monkey and the Typewriter (Startling Stories, Fall 1943) (ss) Light in Darkness (Thrilling Wonder Stories, Fall 1943) The Treasure (Captain Future, Winter 1943) (ss) The Wheezers (Captain Future, Spring 1943) (ss) They Picked a Sucker (Thrilling Mystery, Summer 1944) (ss) Get Your Extra Here! (Startling Stories, Summer 1944) (ss) No Medal for Murdock (G-Men Detective Fall, 1944) (ss) The Companions of Sirius (Captain Future, Winter 1944) (ss) Free Land (Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1949) Skin Dupe (Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1949) Hop O' My Thumb (Super Science Stories, May 1950) The Strangest Bedfellows (Thrilling Wonder Stories, June, 1950) (ss) Disappointment (Startling Stories, July 1950) The Ancient (Fantastic Stories Quarterly, Fall 1950) (ss) The Sack (Astounding Science Fiction, September 1950) The Dark Dimension (Marvel Science Fiction, November 1951) (ss) The Joker (Fantastic Adventures, December 1950) (ss) Star Slave (Super Science Stories, June 1951) (ss) Monster (Planet Stories, July 1951) (ss) Vermin (Fantastic Story Magazine, Fall 1951) The Cupids of Venus (Startling Stories, November 1951) The Addicts (Galaxy Science Fiction, January 1952) Asylum (Marvel Science Fiction, May 1952) (ss) The Luckiest Man Alive! (Science Fiction Quarterly, May 1952) Shipping Clerk (Galaxy Science Fiction, June 1952) New Universe (Startling Stories, July 1952) Temptation (Fantastic Adventures, July 1952) (ss) Runaway (Galaxy Science Fiction, November 1952) Scent of Danger (Science Fiction Quarterly, November 1952) (ss) (with Harry Nix) Dragon Army (Fantastic Adventures, November 1952) Revenge (Space Stories, December, 1952) The Hunters (Space Science Fiction, February 1953) (ss) Forgotten Danger (Science Fiction Adventures, February 1953) Divinity (Space Science Fiction, March 1953) (ss) The Gears of Time (Space Stories, April 1953) (ss) The Haters (Rocket Stories, April 1953) The Weather on Mercury (Galaxy Science Fiction, July 1953) Long Life to You, Albert (Science Fiction Adventures, July 1953) Task of Kayin (Planet Stories, July 1953) Killer on the Run (Fifteen Detective Stories, August 1953) (ss) The Model of a Judge (Galaxy Science Fiction, October 1953) Date of Publication, 2083 A.D. (Fantastic Universe, October 1953) (ss) Country Doctor (Star Science Fiction Stories, Ballantine 1953) Studio Father (Family Circle, January 1954) (ss) G'rilla (Beyond Fantasy Fiction, January 1954) Playground (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1954) The Inner Worlds (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1954) (ss) Bedside Manner (Galaxy Science Fiction, May 1954) Heads You Lose (Beyond Fantasy Fiction, May 1954) No Star's Land (Fantastic Universe, July 1954) (ss) Messenger (Imagination, July 1954) (ss) The Ought to be a Lore (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September, 1954) (ss) Music of the Sphere (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1954) (ss) Unwelcomed Visitor (If, October 1954) Battleground (Amazing Stories, November 1954) (ss) The Ardent Soul (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1954) (ss) Split Personality (Fantastic Stories Quarterly, Winter 1954) (ss) Dead Man's Planet (Galaxy Science Fiction, February 1955) Dark Destiny (Startling Stories, Spring 1955) (na) The Hollywood Habit (Fantastic Universe, April 1955) (ss) Picture Bride (Galaxy Science Fiction, June 1955) Hiding Place (Fantastic Universe, June 1955) (ss) Spoken For (Galaxy Science Fiction, July 1955) The Head Hunters (Fantastic Universe, January 1956) (with Fredrik Pohl) (ss) Star Slugger (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1956) The Sly Bungerhop (Galaxy Science Fiction, September 1957) Stepping Stone (with Frederik Pohl) (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1957) A Feast of Demons (Galaxy Science Fiction, March 1958) Tooth Fairy (Crossworlds Magazine #1 1994) Essays Meet the Author (Startling Stories, September, 1952) The Science Stage (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1957) The Science Stage (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1957) The Science Stage (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1957) The Science Stage (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1957) The Science Stage (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1957) The Science Stage (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1958) The Science Stage (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1958) Memoir (Galaxy, Playboy 1980) Note 1: One reference to these two novels was found here: http://www.robertweinberg.net/captainfuture.htm, but nowhere else. Note 2: Reference to these two stories was made in "Bad Medicine" (Thrilling Wonder Stories, 1941) but I was unable to find any other reference to them. Copyright 1954 by William Morrison FIRST EDITION Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 54-7254 All rights reserved. Editors and reviewers may use short passages from the book without written permission. Printed in the U.S.A. by H. Wolff Designed by Sidney Solomon Contents CHAPTER 1. Two Stowaways in Space 2. Wild Beasts On the Loose 3. The Circus on the Ship 4. The Curious Kabror 5. Mel Makes a Friend—and Loses Her 6. Mel Meets an Enemy 7. Welcome to Mars! 8. Killers in the Circus 9. Rover Takes a Rest 10. Mel Is Followed 11. Mel Gets a Chaperone 12. Under the Martian Sky 13. The Police Investigate 14. Rover Unmasks an Enemy CHAPTER 1 TWO STOWAWAYS IN SPACE HE WAS going to be caught. Not long from now, he knew, he was going to be trapped and thrown into the brig. The only question was what to do before then. The ship was still picking up speed, not as rapidly as during the takeoff, but at a steady acceleration of almost half a gee, so that if it kept up at this rate, in a few hours it would he going dozens of miles a second. Earth was already a thousand miles or more behind him. Whatever else they did, they couldn't send him back now. Mel Oliver took a deep breath, listened carefully for a moment, and then, fighting against the acceleration which pushed him back, crawled out from behind the crate of sup- plies where he had stowed away. The crate itself was firmly clamped to the floor, so that no matter whether the ship speeded up or slowed down, it wouldn't shift around. He wouldn't be able to hide long. With the takeoff only a few minutes behind them, the Captain and the engineers might still be busy checking the engines, making sure that the atomic fuel was disintegrating properly, that the ship was on its carefully calculated course. But soon they'd get around t estimating the air being recirculated through the different compartments, they'd take readings of the temperature all through the ship. They'd detect the extra air he was using up, the heat his body was giving off. They'd know a stowaway was aboard, and they'd find him. What should he do before then? A message, he thought, I have to send a message to Mars., I don't have any money, but if I walked up to the ship's operator and just pretended I was a passenger He shook his head. The radio operator would look at him and see at a glance how young he was. Just a kid, everybody called him, not a man at all. Not quite old enough to vote, even under the new laws that lowered the voting age to eighteen in many places. And what would a kid like him be doing on this ship? No, that wouldn't work. He'd have to think of something better. A door opened, and he slipped back behind the crate. Were they aware of his presence already? A man's voice, which seemed to slur its words in a peculiar way, said quietly, "There is no one around, O Powerful One. We can talk here." A deeper voice replied, a voice that seemed to rumble like a peal of thunder in the ship's hold, even though its owner tried to keep its tones soft. "What is there to talk about? We know we can expect their dirty tricks. We'll just have to be ready for them." "Perhaps we should warn our noble Captain." Mel couldn't see them, but he knew that the man with the deep voice must be shaking his head. "No good. He'll just be mad at us for causing him trouble." "But if we tell that he has a pair of Suspicious Ones on board, he will be forced to act." "We don't know who the passengers are. And he isn't going to investigate the whole list, just on our say-so. No, we'll have to keep this to ourselves, and watch out for trouble." So I'm not the only one who's worried about what's going to happen, thought Mel. For a moment he wondered who the two men were, and what kind of trouble they were afraid of. Then, as the door opened again and he heard them leave, he dismissed them from his mind. The important thing right now was that his presence here was still unsuspected. As he crouched behind the crate, he began to have a curious sensation, as if somebody had tilted the ship beneath him. That was absurd, of course. He held on to the crate and looked around. Nothing had changed, and yet— Then he figured it out. So long as the ship was accelerating, he could feel a pressure toward the stern, toward the place where the Earth lay. That pressure, due to the inertia of his body, took the place of gravity, gave his body weight. It made the difference between up, which was forward, and down, which lay toward the rear. But now the acceleration was decreasing, not all at once, but slowly and gradually. Down wasn't quite so strongly down. And to make up for the loss in feeling of weight, a new force was being applied. The pilot had begun to rotate the ship, to spin it about its long axis. As the ship spun, everything in it was pushed out, away from the center. A new down came into existence, directed toward the hull, away from the long axis. As acceleration decreased, the spin would be increased. The artificial gravity wouldn't reach one gee, even at the hull, but after a while it would be possible, where Mel was, to move back and forth along the corridors that ran the length of the ship without holding on to the hand grips. Even now, walking was no more difficult than climbing a gentle slope. He would have to remember, though, that near the central axis of the ship, the artificial gravity would be close to zero. He came out from behind the crate again. It was going to be monotonous, as well as foolish, waiting here for somebody to find him. He'd simply have to take a chance, he told himself. Somehow he'd have to get that message to Mars. Suppose —suppose he walked up to the ship's radio operator not as a passenger, but as a member of the ship's crew. Suppose he got hold of a uniform somehow, and put it on. He could go up to the radio operator, hand in a written slip of paper, and say, "Passenger asks that this be sent to Mars at once, sir." After the message was sent, they'd find out that something was wrong, they'd look for him and throw him in the brig, but by then he wouldn't care. The message would have been delivered. He grinned at the thought. That was it. All he'd have to do was to find a spare uniform. The lockers that opened off the corridors contained all sorts of material. If he was lucky, he'd find what he wanted in one of them. And maybe, if he was extra lucky, he'd find something to eat. While he had waited for the takeoff, and then had crouched behind the crate, in fear of discovery, he hadn't realized it the way he did now. The fact was that he was hungry. His stomach was complaining, and he felt weak. How long since he had last eaten? Almost a day. Well, he was used to not eating. He tightened his belt another notch. Even if they did capture him, he thought, there'd be that one advantage—they wouldn't let him starve. The ship's acceleration was much less now, and his body felt light. Yes, it was becoming much easier to move. He climbed over to the door, and hesitated. No sound from the corridor. He threw the door open and looked out. The next moment he had closed the door behind him and was making his way down the corridor, using the hand grips just to balance himself. He stopped at the first door he came to. This looked like a closet right here. Or did it? Sometimes it was hard to tell a closet door from the door to a stateroom. Were there staterooms in this part of the ship? It would be terrible if he guessed wrong and got into some passenger's quarters by mistake. He put his hand on the knob and began to turn it slowly. But the knob didn't give. After all his worry about it, the door was locked. He kept on down the corridor to the next door. This one wasn't locked. He took a deep breath and pushed it open. The room or closet, whatever it was, was dark. He snapped his fingers, and with the sound, the light went on. He saw that the place was in fact a deep closet. Electrical floor-sweeping and cleaning machines were piled up haphazardly in one corner, driven there by the force of the takeoff, and a group of plastic cans had fallen on top of them. Against the wall hung not a row of uniforms but a confused mass of coveralls, probably used by the ship's crew when they had some dirty work to do. Maybe there was a uniform behind the coveralls. He went over to the wall and began to toss the clumsy garments aside. At this moment he heard a sound—the sound of footsteps—in the corridor outside. He snapped his fingers hastily, and the light went out again. Then he dropped down, pulling a pair of the coveralls over him. The footsteps had stopped. Then they began again—or was that another pair which had come to join them? Somehow they seemed heavier than they had done before. Yes, that was it, he decided. Two men talking in the corridor outside the door. Mel hoped that neither of them took it into his head to look into the closet. He was beginning to feel hot under the coveralls, to find difficulty in breathing. He twisted around, trying to lift part of them off in order to get more air. His hand swung around and— That wasn't plastic he felt. Neither the hard plastic of one of the cans nor the soft plastic of the garment over him. It was too soft and smooth. It was fur. Living fur, too. But silent. Some animal, some creature he hadn't even suspected, was hiding there in the darkness of the closet, had been hiding from before the ship took off. I le caught his own breath and listened. But there was no sound from the animal. Not a movement, not a twitch of the fur under his hand. Nothing, except suddenly a low, a very low growl. He took his hand away, and felt his heart beating painfully, with even more excitement than it had beaten during the takeoff. He had no idea what sort of beast was here in the closet with him. If it attacked, it might tear him to pieces in a matter of seconds. The feet outside moved, both pairs. The men were going away. He snapped his fingers, and the light came on again. Throwing aside the mass of coveralls, he stared at his companion. A dog, by Pluto, a dog. A big powerful beast that looked like one of the new collies that had been bred the last twenty years. A beast with jaws that could rip apart even a bigger man with one bite, and yet with a wistful look on its face that made it look almost human. The dog was staring at him, waiting to see what he would do. "Hello, fellow," he said, keeping his voice low. "You a stowaway too? Or do you belong to somebody on this ship? The dog couldn't answer, of course. The only reason Mel talked to him was that he hadn't talked to anybody for so long. He couldn't actually talk to himself, that would be crazy. But talking to the dog was different. A dog was an audience, it could sympathize with what you had to say, even though it didn't understand a word. The funny thing, however, was that this dog did seem to understand. During the last century, Mel knew, some breeds of dogs had been getting smarter. They couldn't talk, because their throats weren't built for it. But some of them understood a lot. And maybe this was one of the smart ones. "You do understand me, don't you, boy? I wish I knew your name. Mind if I take a look at your collar?" He stretched out his hand, and the dog understood what he wanted to do. It didn't move away. And Mel found that wasn't wearing a collar. "No collar? Then you don't belong to anybody here. You are a stowaway, aren't you? Why? Are you looking for someone? Or running away from a dog catcher?" The dog's head moved sideways. "You're shaking your head, aren't you? I wonder why you really are here. Anyway, you understand a lot. I'll bet you understand how I feel, too. I haven't had anything to eat or drink for a couple of ages. And you haven't either, have you? How did you get into this closet, anyway? Turn the handle with your teeth? Yes, that must have been it. You're a smart dog, you're smart enough to have done that." The dog was looking at him in a questioning way. "You want to know why I'm talking so much, don't you? I don't usually chatter away like this. I'm the quiet kind, at least that's what they told me in the orphanage they sent me to after my father and mother died. Maybe it's because I never had the chance to talk to somebody who could understand me before. Dog or man, you're the smartest animal that's ever listened to me." The dog seemed to nod. Mel grinned. "Think you're pretty good, don't you? Well, you are. I like you a thousand times better than I liked that old Mr. Pringsheim, who ran the orphanage. I like you better than anybody I ever met." Footsteps outside again. He snapped his fingers, and the light went out. This time he deliberately put his hand on the animal's head. The dog came closer to him. Once more the footsteps died away. "We'll have to get out of here, fellow," said Mel. "We'll have to find something to eat and drink. And I have to send a message to old John Armstrong on Mars. He used to be my father's friend, he can help me. Now, you stay here and don't make a sound. You know what'll happen to us if they find us, don't you? They'll throw us in the brig—" The dog seemed to shake his head under Mel's hand. "No? You're wrong, boy. 'Boy.' I don't like that. You must have a name. What is it, Tippy? Prince? Rover?" Then a sudden suspicion hit him. "Not Queenie or Duchess, by any chance?" The dog just looked at him, as if disgusted at his stupidity. "Okay, you don't have to look like that. I was just guessing. You don't care what name you have, do you, so long as it's a boy's name? Well, I think I'll call you, 'Rover.' It's a good old dog's name, and if ever any dog deserved it, you do. Quite a rover you are. A space rover. You start off from Earth and go to Mars, and maybe after that the asteroids, and Jupiter, and Jupiter's moons. You'll get around—if they don't find you first and throw you in the brig." Again the dog seemed to shake his head, and suddenly Mel realized what the animal might have on its mind. "You mean that they don't throw dogs in the brig? What do they do with them?" He paused for a minute, and then said shakily, "I see. On a ship like this space is too valuable to waste on dogs. You eat food and drink water and breathe air that could be used by humans. So they have no use for you. And if they find a stowaway like you, they simply toss him through an airlock, into empty space. You explode at once, of course, because of the air pressure inside you. And nobody cares, because you're only an animal—" He cut himself short. "No. You're more than an animal. I don't know why you're aboard this ship, but I won't let them do that to you. I won't." Mel snapped the light on again and stood up. This time he didn't tilt so much as before. He began to search once more through the mass of coveralls. "No uniforms. But maybe I can wear one of these things. Make believe I've been working around the engines. Smear my face with grease, just to help the idea along. And after I get that message sent to Mars, I'll toss this aside again, and dig up something to eat and drink. For both of us." He picked out a pair of coveralls that didn't seem much too big for him and began to slip it over his clothes. By the time he was finished, he didn't have to worry about greasing his hands and face. The coveralls had done the job for him. "Stay here, Rover. Don't let out a peep." On a piece of paper he dug up from his clothes he wrote out a message. Then he snapped out the light and slipped into the corridor. With growing confidence he set off down the corridor as if he owned it. The ship seemed just a little tilted, and he didn't have to hold on to the hand grips at all. A couple of passengers, a man and a woman, were coming from the other end. Mel allowed himself to glance casually at them as he passed. They were smartly dressed, wearing new Martian-style clothes that made them look like ancient Puritans, and they were too busy talking with each other to spare a glance at him. At the next corner there was a three-way intersection. A ladder led up toward the central axis and down toward the hull. Another corridor led in a circle around the axis, connecting the lengthwise corridors. Here, on the walls, he found directions in glowing letters: ENGINE ROOMS, CAPTAIN'S CABIN, DINING ROOMS, RECREATION ROOM. But the one direction he wanted wasn't there. There was nothing about the ship's radio operator. That, he thought, was odd. Or was it? Maybe passengers weren't supposed to have anything to do with the radio operator. Not directly, anway. Maybe if they had any messages to send they were supposed to do so through a ship's officer. But that still didn't help him locate the radio operator. Or did it? Let's do a little thinking about this, Mel, old boy, he told himself. You wouldn't have the radio transmitter located near the ship's engine room. Suppose something went wrong with the atomic motors, suppose radiation got through the shields and the ship had to send out a call for help? The radiation near the engine room would blanket all the messages, and the ship would be out of luck. No, the best place for the radio would be someplace up front, where there would be least interference from the engines or the blasting jets. And it so happened that the Captain's cabin was up front too. That, decided Mel, was the place to look. I'm an invisible man, thought Mel. When you put on a pair of greasy coveralls and you get your face all greasy too, nobody pays any attention to you, except maybe to edge away a little for fear of getting greasy too. He walked down the corridor and past the Captain's cabin, and nobody even spoke to him. Nobody noticed that he was just a kid, pretending to be a crewman. He found the radio operator's cabin, as he had expected, just two doors away from the Captain's. The radio operator was busy, although not at his work. He had a form sheet in front of him, and he was trying to pick the winner in the next Interplanetary races for space yachts. He was frowning when Mel came in, and muttering something about the Star Racer being faster in a straightaway, and harder to maneuver. He didn't even lift his eyes from the form sheet to see the newcomer. Mel shoved the piece of paper toward him, and the radio operator took it absently. "Captain says to send this right away," growled Mel, trying to make his own voice hoarse and gruff. "Big shot passenger wants it done in a hurry." "No rush," said the operator absently. "That isn't what he says. 'Snap into it, Mister,' he tells me, `Get going right away.' " Mel turned and began to walk out. For the operator's sake he grumbled a bit, trying to sound resentful. "I don't see why he had to get me to do this. I got enough to keep me busy." Outside the cabin he took a deep breath of relief. The operator hadn't suspected a thing. The radiogram would be sent. Now what he had to do was get back to his closet and get rid of these coveralls. It was just at this moment that he heard a sudden scream from a woman passenger. And then an outburst of barking. It's Rover, he thought excitedly. They've found Rover. They're going to throw him out into space! He rushed down the corridor in the direction from which the barking came. CHAPTER 2 WILD BEASTS ON THE LOOSE A CREWMAN and an officer were standing near the open doorway of the closet. A little further away stood a dignified, middle-aged woman passenger, the one who had done the screaming. In the closet the barking had given way to threatening growls. The officer had his hand on his gun, and Mel yelled in panic, "Don't shoot!" Then he dashed past the officer and stood in front of Rover, with his arm around the dog's neck. "Who's this man?" demanded the officer. The crewman was puzzled. "Don't know him, sir." "You ought to know him. He's from the engine room, isn't he?" "Looks that way, but—say, he isn't a man at all. He's just a kid." "Out of the way, Son," said the officer. "We have no room on this ship for stowaway dogs. And this one is dangerous. He attacked that lady." "He didn't! He wouldn't attack anybody!" "He has a vicious look about him," said the woman. "Just look at him! He's so big and fierce. I mistook this door for the entrance to the upper deck and I was just starting to go in, when he leaped at me. I was terrified almost out of my wits." She didn't have far to be terrified, thought Mel, but he kept that to himself. "I'll bet you scared him more than he did you," said Mel. "He was trying to hide. He didn't want to bother anybody." More people were gathering about the doorway. Now another officer appeared, one with gold braid on his cap, and the first officer saluted. This was the Captain. "What's the trouble, Masters?" "We've found a couple of stowaways, sir. A boy and his dog." The Captain said gravely, "What's your name, Son?" "I'm Mel Oliver, sir." "Mel Oliver. I see. You're the one who tried to send a message to Mr. John Armstrong on Mars, aren't you?" "Tried to send, sir?" Mel's heart seemed to stop, then suddenly start up again, painfully. "You mean that the message wasn't really sent?" "That's exactly what I mean. I'm afraid, Mel, that you don't know shipboard rules very well. The radio operator isn't permitted to transmit any message not signed or initialed by me. When he stared at that greasy slip of paper you handed him and saw that my signature wasn't on it, he phoned me. Of course there was no Oliver on the passenger list, and I told him not to send it." "But you've got to send it, Captain!" cried Mel desperately. "It's important. It's a matter of life and death. I'll pay for the message." "Do you have enough money on you to pay for it?" Mel said slowly, "No, sir. But I'm sure Mr. Armstrong will let me have enough money." "That's the man to whom the message was addressed?" "Yes, sir. He was an old friend of my father's." "And where is your father now?" Mel said somberly, "He's dead. My mother and father were killed at the same time, in a space crash. I don't have anybody but Mr. Armstrong. And I didn't find out that he lived on Mars until just a short time ago. When I did find out, I didn't have the money to pay for passage. That's why I stowed away." "Why are you so anxious to get to Mr. Armstrong? And what's this matter of life and death? Are you looking for somebody to take care of you?" "No, sir," replied Mel proudly. "I can take care of myself. I've been taking care of myself since I was fourteen, when the orphanage sent me out to work for a farmer. It was hard work, but I managed. I've had jobs since then, and I've earned my own way. The reason I want to see Mr. Armstrong—" "Well?" Mel looked at the crowd around him. "That's my own business, sir," he said with sudden stubbornness. "You say you've held down different jobs. Why did you change from one to the other? Why couldn't you save enough money for your passage?" "There were reasons, Captain. Good reasons." "And you don't want to tell them to me?" "No, sir. Not now, anyway." "You force me to guess at the reasons, Mel. And my guess isn't very favorable." "I can't stop you from guessing, sir." "What about this dog? When did you pick him up?" "On board the ship, sir. He was a stowaway too. Please, Captain, don't order him shot or dumped overboard. I'll take care of him." "You'll pay for his food and water and air?" asked the Captain. "Later, yes, sir. When I get some money. He's a smart dog, Captain, and not vicious at all. He wouldn't hurt anybody." The Captain said, "Do you know what the fare is for human passengers making the trip from Earth to Mars? Do you realize what it costs us for every pound of mass, dead or alive, that we transport from one planet to the other? No, Mel, we can't afford to carry non-paying passengers. Human stowaways are put in the brig and receive severe penalties when they arrive at our destination. As for dogs—" He shrugged, and turned to the officer who had been on the scene when Mel arrived. "Mr. Masters, dispose of this animal." "But you can't!" cried Mel. "Captain—" The Captain had turned his back and was already striding away. Masters said, "Out of the way, Son. You heard the Captain's orders." He had his gun out again. Mel tried to hold on to Rover, but two crewmen grabbed him and dragged him aside. But Rover wasn't waiting around to be shot. As the crewmen struggled with Mel, the dog dashed past them and leaped against the officer. The latter, with no chance to pull the trigger, staggered back, and Rover grabbed the gun in his mouth. The woman passenger who had first discovered him was screaming again. With the gun still in his mouth, Rover dashed down the corridor. Passengers scattered out of his way. One of them, a fat little man, didn't move rapidly enough, and was knocked down. The whole corridor was in an uproar. And then, as if that wasn't enough, other screams began to come from the intersecting corridor at the right. Screams and shouts, and—and roars, thought Mel. Roars as of enraged beasts. In their excitement, the crewmen who had grabbed Mel loosened their grips. With a sudden effort, he tore free altogether and ran after Rover. Another officer had pulled his gun and was shooting as Rover rounded the corner toward the right, from which the new uproar came. Mel raced after the dog. They had hardly gone a dozen steps, when Mel gasped and almost fainted. A frightening beast was rushing down at him on six huge feet. The whole animal was about seven feet long and four high, and its sides were covered with pink fur. It had a head, but no eyes that he could see. The great nostrils on the upper part of the head kept twitching, as if sniffing their way. Behind it came a round thing about three feet high, that rolled like a drunken wheel. And behind that came a fearsome creature of a more common kind—a Bengal tiger. The tiger leaped easily over the wheel, onto the back of the great pink animal. The latter let out a bray like that of a donkey, rolled over on its side, and kicking out with one of its heavy feet, knocked the tiger against the side of the corridor. The tiger's roars echoed from one end of the ship to the other, filling it so completely that Mel was conscious of no other sound. Rover leaped forward, the gun falling from his mouth as he opened it. He barked furiously at the pink beast, which came to a frightened stop. Mel picked up the gun, ready to shoot at the tiger if the latter attacked. At that moment, a man raced around the corridor from the opposite direction. He was close to seven feet tall, and exceedingly thin. His clothes hung on him as if on a scarecrow. He had very long thin arms, and in each one he carried a gun of some kind. As the tiger leaped again, the newcomer fired. Smoke filled the air, and the tiger, snarling and choking, turned over in mid-leap. Mel's trigger finger hesitated just in time to keep from firing his own weapon. After that, Mel was unable to tell exactly what was happening. Behind the tiger were other beasts, milling about, running into the walls and, into each other. The tall man was joined by a man who was about a foot and a half shorter and three times his width. As the wheel-like thing tried to roll past him, the wide man grabbed it and threw it down. It quivered for a moment, and then lay quietly on the floor. All the time, Rover was barking, and dashing at the animals which were running toward him. One of them, a three-legged beast, tried to jump over the dog, but the corridor wasn't high enough, and Rover, launching himself in the air, knocked the creature down, but without hurting it. It uttered a shrill scream of fear, and leaped back. The ship's officers appeared, with their guns, but the tall thin man prevented them from shooting. Gradually, with the help of Rover's barking, the wide man's powerful muscles, and the thin man's smoke and gas weapons, the animals were driven back. The two men and the dog followed, herding them into cages. The tiger was one of the last to go, but finally they got him into his cage, and dropped the transparent metalloid door in front of him. The thin man said, "I am exhausted. Never, O My Friends, have I fought free from a more difficult situation." And before Mel's startled eyes he seemed to shrink half a foot. An officer had appeared. He grunted, "You two ought to take better care of your animals." The thin man said, "You do not think, O Sage Mr. Laughlin, that such creatures escaped from their cages by accident, do you? Or because we were careless?" "That's exactly what I do think," said Laughlin. "The thought is a measure of the deficiency of your brain, O Wise One. Is it not clear that some enemy let them out?" "One of your passengers," added the wide man. "You'd better check your list." Mel recognized their voices. The thin man spoke in soft slurred tones, the other in a deep rumble. They had expected trouble, and now they had found it. "Don't try to pass the buck," said Laughlin. "We should never have taken the job of transporting those animals. They're more trouble than they're worth." "Trouble? Not to you," said the wide man. "You and the crew didn't stop them. All you would have done is kill them. We stopped them ourselves. With a little help from that dog." They looked at Rover, who was standing there, panting, his tongue out. "Thanks for reminding me," said Laughlin. "I heard the Captain tell Masters to get rid of him. I guess it's my job now." He was reaching for his gun again, when the wide man said, in his bass rumble, "You're not going to kill that animal, are you? Why, he's valuable." "Not to us," said Laughlin dryly. "He'll use up food and air that we'd have to pay for." "He is valuable," broke in Mel. He turned to face the thin man and the latter's partner. "He's a smart dog. Look how he helped you round up those animals, without hurting one of them." "I saw him, O High and Mighty Mate, stop the three-legged kabror," said the thin man. "We all owe him much. If the kabror had found its way into the passenger's quarters, there might have been a most magnificent panic." "What would the animal have done?" asked Mel. "That," said Laughlin, "is none of my business. I heard the Captain give orders how to deal with that dog." The wide man's huge right paw closed over Laughlin's more normal sized hand. "Just a minute, Mister. You're in a little too much of a hurry to use your guns. And they don't put you to sleep for a little while, but for good. I like this dog. He can be trained to do a lot of things." "I told you there were orders from the Captain." "He didn't give them to you. And anyway, maybe those orders can be changed. Suppose we were to pay this dog's passage?" "I've got nothing to say about that. You'll have to talk to the Captain about it." "Exactly what I'll do," rumbled the wide man, and went over to a wall phone. Mel waited anxiously as the wide man spoke. Five minutes later, a broad grin reassured him. The wide man said, "Done. We're paying for him, and he's going to stay alive." Mel breathed a sigh of relief. Laughlin said, "I don't mind telling you that I'm glad it turned out this way. He's a nice-looking dog, and I didn't really like the idea of killing him." He turned to Mel. "Come along, Son." "Where are you taking the lad, O Officious One?" demanded the thin man. "Is not the canine his?" "The dog's a stowaway. So's this youngster. And his passage isn't paid for." "It will be," said the thin man. "This time I myself shall talk to the Captain. Out of my way, O Underling." But this conversation was not as short as the previous one. A dog, pointed out the Captain, might be smart, but he was just an animal after all, and he didn't know any better than to stow away. A boy, however, knew. He was well aware that stowing away was a serious offense, and by rights he ought to be punished. After ten minutes, however, the Captain agreed to leave Mel in the care of the two men, and Laughlin went away empty-handed. Mel said to the thin man, "Thanks, Mister." And to his partner, "And you too, for saving Rover's life. I'll pay you back some day." "The dog has repaid us already," said the thin man. "Yes, O Rover of the Spaceways, it is we who are in your debt, not you in ours. We do not know why you have stowed away, but you have more than earned your keep, and if danger threatens again, as we fear it may, we shall be pleased at your presence amongst us." His partner nodded. "I'm going to have another talk with the Captain and see if he'll check up on those passengers of his." "That is what we should have done in the first place, O Powerful One," said the thin man. "Forgive me if I remind you that I made a suggestion to this effect." "He wouldn't have paid any attention to us. Now, maybe, he'll be more willing to believe us." He turned to face Mel. "Maybe it's a little late for introductions, but you'd better learn who we are anyway. I'm Bolam Turino. Came from Mars originally, joined a circus as a strong man, and spent ten years learning the ropes, before joining up with Hakin here in our own outfit. What's on this ship is only a small part of it. Hakin is a Venusian, as you can tell from his flowery language. The two of us are trying to get our animals to Mars. We expect to meet the rest of our crew when we get there. We've got a fair-sized circus, one to be proud of, if I do say so myself." "I'm Mel Oliver," said Mel self-consciously. "It is a pleasure to know you, O Fortunate Lad," said Hakin. Bolam Turino was standing between them, but without any effort at all, Hakin seemed to stretch his arm two extra feet, as he reached over to shake hands. "Greetings from the Rubber One." "Hakin is billed as an India rubber man, but you never saw rubber do some of the things that he can do," said his deep-voiced partner. "But never mind us. You'll find out plenty about us just hanging around the circus. What's your trouble?" "Yes," said Hakin. "You are no thief, my friend. Why did you make your way so slyly aboard this ship, when you knew that stowing away was a crime of more than minor magnitude?" "I didn't want to," said Mel slowly. "But I had to get to Mars to see somebody. And besides, on Earth—" "What was the matter on Earth?" demanded Bolam. "Somebody was trying to kill me. And I didn't like the idea." CHAPTER 3 THE CIRCUS ON THE SHIP THEY were finishing dinner, and for the first time in days, Mel felt the sense of satisfaction that comes from eating a good meal when you're really hungry. The two circus men possessed a large store of animal food of all kinds, and Rover too had enjoyed himself. He now lay at Mel's feet, stretched out lazily without having to worry about being found and thrown into space. The ship's acceleration had been greatly decreased, almost to zero, and the absence of strong gravity produced a nearly weightless feeling that was a pleasure in itself. Bolam Turino asked, "You're sure you don't mind, Mel, eating here in the circus quarters with us, instead of in one of the dining rooms?" "I'd mind it if I had to eat in the dining rooms. I like it a lot better being with you fellows. Besides, they wouldn't let Rover into the dining rooms." "They would not mind Rover so greatly, O Full-Bellied Friend," said Hakin. "It is we who disturb their petty minds. We have the aura of the circus about us, and they deem us freaks. When once we did go into one of the dining rooms, those present stopped eating to look at us. And do you wish to know the truth, my friends? They were the ones who seemed to me odd beyond words." The wide man reached out with one of his big hands and absently scratched Rover behind the ears. The dog lifted his muzzle in enjoyment. "We are freaks," said Bolam. "Anybody that's out of the ordinary in any way is a freak. At least to some people." "What I don't understand, Bolam," said Mel, "is how you got your strength. You're stronger than anybody I've ever seen on Earth. But Mars has pretty low gravity, and most of the people who grow up there don't have to develop their muscles a great deal." "I didn't grow up on Mars. I was just born there. And then my parents moved back to Earth. At first I had a difficult time getting used to the new place. I suppose you've seen Martians who've returned to Earth after getting used to the gravity of a smaller, lighter planet. Just walking around, or even sitting, in Earth gravity, is exhausting for them. I felt that way at first too. "But I was young enough to adapt, with a little help from my parents. They had me do special exercises, and the doctors gave me injections of drugs to stimulate muscle development. Usually the drugs have only a brief effect. With me, however, they continued to act much longer than usual, and I ended up like this. Just a freak." "You don't look like a freak to me," said Mel. "I wish I was half as strong as you." "I don't mind what I look like," said Bolam quietly. "I know what I'm like inside." "And so do I, O Powerful One," added Hakin. To Mel he said, "There can be no more faithful friend. And the Wide One's unusual strength is indeed a comfort in time of trouble. It has saved our lives on more than one occasion. And it may save them again." "I'm not looking forward to more trouble," said Bolam, frowning. "But I suppose we have to expect it. Whoever opened the doors of those cages—and I still don't know how it was done—is still on the ship, mingling with the other passengers. We haven't the slightest idea who the man is, and whether he's alone or not. But we do know that the man who sent him wants us out of the way." "That is another reason, O Inquiring One," said Hakin to Mel, "for avoidance of the dining rooms and those parts of the ship which are frequented by the other passengers. It is an adventure fraught with danger to go there." "But couldn't you put on a disguise?" suggested Mel. "I'll bet, Hakin, that you could make yourself even shorter than you are now. You could make yourself look altogether different. Nobody in the ship would recognize you." Hakin grinned. "Our new friend's head is not as empty as the space outside the ship, is it, Bolam? You are right, O Scion of the Olivers, I can change my apparent size and even the cast of my features. Look." Mel watched, hardly daring to believe his eyes, as Hakin twisted and shrank right there in front of him. From tall and thin he rapidly became short and squat, and at the same time, his features altered. Soon his face began to seem like a blurred copy of his partner's. He ended up looking like a younger brother of Bolam's, a little smaller and not so husky, but enough like him for the resemblance to be unmistakable. "How am I?" he rumbled, sounding almost like Bolam. The dog growled uneasily, and Mel said, "I know how you feel, Rover. I find it hard to believe myself." Suddenly there was a sharp ripping sound, and Hakin groaned. His body began to change back quickly. "Alas, I must restrain my mimetic impulse," he said. "Each time I give vent to my desire for change and expand my horizons, I rip my clothes." Mel grinned. He could see Hakin's tanned skin through the holes that had been ripped, and now that the rubber man was tall and thin again, he seemed more like a scarecrow than ever. He said, "You'd better be careful about imitating Bolam." "Never mind your clothes," said the wide man. "A couple of plastic patches will make them look like new. You can fix your suit in five minutes." "Anyway," said Mel consolingly, "your disguise was perfect. I wouldn't have known you." "It fools many," agreed Hakin with satisfaction. "But it is not perfect, O Flattering Friend. I cannot hold a face different from my own for more than five minutes at a time. And sometimes, when I am unusually weary, I also find it difficult to make my muscles retain their artificial form. Besides, to tell the truth, my friends, it is a nuisance having to worry about splitting my clothes. That is why the garments I usually wear fit so loosely. It is necessary for them to hang upon me like sacks in order that they may fit me when my body becomes like Bolam's." He was back to his normal size now, and as Mel watched, he took from one of his pockets several plastic patches, which he carefully fitted to the torn spots in his clothes. When he had them in place, he pulled a little rip cord, there was a puff of smoke from the chemicals, and the patches fused into place. "Now that I am once more well dressed," said Hakin, "I shall wander through the ship and see what I can learn. The wise man, O My Companions, lets pass no opportunity to acquire knowledge. Farewell, until we meet again, my friends." When he started out toward the door that separated the circus quarters from the rest of the ship he was about six foot six. But at every step he shrank an inch, and as he left, he was only five foot ten. Mel gazed after him. "Hakin is some disguise expert," he said admiringly. "But I noticed one thing that might give him trouble. His voice isn't quite steady. And if he talks in that flowery way of his, he's sure to be spotted." "You're not so stupid, Mel," said Bolam with approval. "His voice is the trouble. Just because his muscles can stretch so easily, he doesn't find it easy to speak in steady tones. But don't worry about his talking in a flowery way. He can be short and snappy if he wants to be. If he doesn't get excited and forget himself, and start talking too much, he shouldn't be caught." "I can't help thinking," said Mel uneasily, "about those people who tried to ruin your circus. How did they get through that door?" "I don't know," replied Bolam frankly. "I thought the door was foolproof, but it doesn't seem to have stopped them at all. That's why I'm afraid they'll try to harm us again. But come on, and I'll show you around. Then you'll have a better idea of what we're up against." Mel didn't wait for a second invitation. He had never seen a performance by an interplanetary circus, and now he was getting a view of one from the inside. He followed Bolam down the corridor, and also without waiting to be asked, Rover in turn followed him. "This part of our circus," said Bolam, "takes up about half the space usually reserved for freight. All interplanetary passenger ships, you know, carry freight too. Shipping space is too valuable to be wasted, and if there's a cancellation and no one is waiting to take the passenger's place, the cabin is filled with anything that needs rapid transportation. We pay higher than normal freight rates for our animals, because we not only take up space, but use air, food, and water. Not as much as you might think, though. Take a look at these cages." Mel looked, and his first reaction was one of shock. There were at least two dozen small, transparent boxes, and inside each one, filling it almost completely, there was an animal of some kind. "Isn't that cruel?" he asked. "Those cages are tiny. The animals don't have a chance to move around." "They couldn't move if the cages were ten times as large. Notice that they seem to be asleep. We put them in suspended animation. You've heard of hibernation, haven't you?" Mel nodded. "It's when an animal goes to sleep for a whole winter." "Right. Well, a hibernating animal doesn't eat, and he breathes a tiny fraction of the air he'd breathe when awake. "We can create artificial hibernation with most of our animals. They sleep through the distance from one planet to another. When we get to the end of our journey, we wake them up." "How about the animals that don't sleep?" asked Mel. "There was that tiger, for instance, and all the others that escaped." "We left them awake for two reasons. First, some of them can't be made to hibernate at all. And second, there are a few that we want to train. I'll show you later how we do that." They walked along the corridor, and Mel and Rover both peered in through the metalloid cage windows. The tiger was pacing up and down restlessly, still excited by the great adventure of a little while before, when he had escaped from his cage and started to roam through the ship. Now he glared at them and roared, as if anxious to get out and tear them to pieces. The hair stood up like a ridge down the middle of Rover's back. "You won't have an easy time training this one," said Mel. "He's fierce." "It won't be as easy as with some beasts, but we'll manage without too much trouble," replied Bolam. The wide man seemed lost in thought for a moment. "Let me figure this out. We're accelerating very little now, and it'll be about ten weeks before we land on Mars and meet our circus crew. By the end of that time, this tiger will be a different animal. He won't dare make a move at me." "That I'd have to see to believe," said Mel. "You'll see soon enough. In fact, I'll show you right now." "You're going in with him?" Bolam grinned and shook his head. "I'm not so foolish. Even though I'm stronger than most men, I'm not really made of steel. That beast would tear me apart in five minutes." "You can't train him from outside the cage, can you?" "No. I'm going to send somebody in there with him. Somebody who is made of steel." Bolam went to a closet and took out a black box. Mel noted that the surface was full of buttons and small switches, all of different shapes and colors. It was, in fact, an electronic control board. Bolam pressed one of the green buttons, and waited. A door swung open—a closet door. And a man came out, a wide man, stepping somewhat stiffly. Rover growled as the man walked toward them, and Mel said, "Why, it's—it's you!" "My twin brother," said Bolam. "And he's made of steel, as I said." It was a robot, dressed like a man. Mel hadn't seen many robots, and he had a special reason for being interested in them. This robot approached the door of the tiger's cage and waited. Mel watched as Bolam pressed more buttons. Red, green, and yellow, he noticed. The cage door opened and the robot went in. The door slid shut behind him. The tiger leaped. A purple button. The robot's arm shot out, and the striped beast went hurtling backwards, head over heels. At the same time, its fur seemed to stand on end. Angry roars filled the entire room. The tiger leaped again, and once again was thrown back as easily as a man would throw back a kitten. This time, as the robot advanced toward it, it retreated to a corner of the cage and snarled defiance. "In the old days," said Bolam, "the trainer would go inside the cage and use a whip or chair to make the animals keep their distance. With really ferocious animals, of course, the method didn't work. And even at best, the animals were trained imperfectly. Once in a while they'd turn on their trainer and either wound or kill him. "Our present method of training is more effective. It depends on what is known as reflex conditioning, which was discovered way back at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. You've heard of it, haven't you?" "We had it in school," said Mel. "Something about a dog hearing a bell." "Do they still teach it that way?" asked Bolam in surprise. Schools don't change their methods very fast, do they? Anyway, conditioned reflexes were first studied in work with dogs. But what we've learned applies to all animals, at least of Earth type, and even to a large extent to Martian animals. And to human beings. Young children learn very rapidly by reflex conditioning. As they grow older, however, and really become more human, they learn by conscious effort, by thinking about what they're doing. Some animals can learn that way too. Take Rover, for instance—" The dog looked up at them at the sound of his name. "Rover is smart, he can learn some things just from your telling him about them. But that tiger can't. He has to learn differently. And a lot more slowly." The tiger, Mel saw, was lashing its tail, getting up its determination to leap again. Even from the outside of the cage, Mel had a tense feeling, a feeling of nervousness at being so close to so dangerous a beast. But to the robot there was no danger at all. The steel imitation of a man paused, and suddenly the tiger made up its mind and threw its body forward. Once more the only result was for the roaring animal to be thrown back, its fur bristling. This time, the roar was not quite the same as usual. It was almost a yelp, as of pain. "That training robot," said Bolam, "is another me. At least as far as the tiger can tell. It looks like me, and since it's wearing my clothes, it smells like me. And it's teaching that tiger two things. First, that I can't be hurt. And second that I can cause pain." "Pain?" "Every time he's thrown back, that beast gets an electric shock. That's what makes his fur bristle. After a time he associates a man who looks like me with an unpleasant experience. He doesn't think about it. It's just like a mechanical memory that's pounded into his nervous system. The sequence becomes automatic. Jump at me—pain. As simple as that. He becomes conditioned against jumping." The tiger was now actually slinking away from the robot. "This one's learning fast," said Bolam with approval. "And he wouldn't learn any other way. I shudder to think of what would happen to an old-fashioned trainer who got into a cage with him and tried to keep him off with a chair or whip. It would be murder." "If you were to go in there now instead of the robot," asked Mel, "would he hurt you?" "He might. So far he's had only this one lesson. What's needed now is to make the lesson sink in so deep that the tiger will never unlearn it, and give way to his natural desire to tear a piece off me. That means repetition, day after day. Meanwhile, I intend to go ahead with the next step. I'm going to teach him to sit." The robot was following the tiger around the cage. When it got the beast in a corner, it stretched out steel hands. The tiger lashed at it, but the only result was another shock, and the beast cowered. The robot seized the tiger and pushed him back on his haunches. "Sit!" commanded Bolam, and the command was repeated in the cage, in his own voice, through the robot's speaker. The tiger tried to squirm away, but metal hands held him down. After a few seconds, the robot allowed him to get up again, then pushed him down once more as the command, "Sit!" was repeated. By the end of five minutes of this, the tiger was half squatting at command, and needed only a slight push to get him into a sitting position. "He has already become partly conditioned to the word 'Sit,' " said Bolam. "The next step is to complete the conditioning and then to condition him to a hand signal. As I say, Sit!' I'll hold out my hand low, palm down. After a while, the tiger will begin to associate that signal with sitting. But I think he's had enough for now. Animals shouldn't be trained too long at any one session." "Can't you train them in other ways?" asked Mel. "Like, by giving them food every time they do something right?" "Yes, that can be done. Especially with beasts that aren't ferocious. But sometimes it becomes a nuisance when you have to keep feeding an animal all through its performance, and it refuses to do what you tell it to unless it gets a reward." He pressed another button on the black box, and the training robot marched out of the cage, to be sent back to its closet. Bolam himself regarded his steel duplicate as no more than a useful tool, but Mel couldn't rid himself of a feeling of awe. The robot was so lifelike, it actually did seem like another Bolam. "There are some beasts," Bolam went on, "especially those that didn't originate on Earth, whose reflexes can't be conditioned very easily. Even on Earth, you know, there are insects and other animals whose behavior patterns are so largely inherited that training in any real sense is practically impossible. What we do with those is build an act around their usual pattern of behavior, so that they seem to be obeying commands, although actually they're doing what they would have done without the command anyway. For instance, suppose you had a three-toed Venusian sloot—something like a wart-hog—and you wanted it to dig in the ground and uncover buried treasure. You couldn't train it to do that in a million years. But all you have to do is bury a rotten egg in the ground. Then, just before the sloot is released, you order it to dig for treasure. It smells the egg, and immediately tries to get at it. To somebody who didn't know any better, it would seem to be obeying your command." "That's how they use trained animals in 3-D movies, isn't it?" asked Mel. "One of the ways. It makes the animal seem much smarter than it really is. Another way is to use a double." "You mean a robot animal?" "No, just another animal that looks like the first one. For instance, suppose you want to show a smart cat, one that can open a door, and play dead, and sit up, and do half a dozen other tricks. Now, cats are hard to train, even modern cats. You might get a cat to do one or two of those things, but not all of them. But if you use half a dozen similar cats, each with its own specialty, the 3-D audience won't know the difference. It'll think it's watching the same cat all the time, and give the animal credit for being better trained than any cat can possibly be." "I guess you have to know a lot to handle animals right. How many training robots do you have?" "One for me and one for Hakin," said Bolam. "They're expensive, and we don't have any spares." He grinned. "Thinking of becoming a trainer yourself?" "I like the idea," admitted Mel. "Let me see. This green button makes the robot come out of the closet. This red one opens the cage door." "You're a good observer," said Bolam approvingly. "How about this green one?" "It sends the robot into the cage. I think that green is to move the robot as a whole. This yellow—I don't quite get what that does. I think that it directs the robot against the animal in the cage. And the purple makes it throw the animal back." "Almost right," said Bolam. "The yellow controls a whole set of actions against the animal to be trained. If the animal attacks, electronic relays induce the movements that throw it back. The purple button controls the strength of the electric shock. Purple is used only for large beasts." He put the box aside. "Later on," he promised, "I'll let you use this. And I'll show you some of the less dangerous beasts. Some are very friendly, and we don't have to use a robot with them at all." In his interest in the training of the tiger, Mel had forgotten about Rover. Now the dog recalled Mel's attention to himself by a low almost inaudible growl. Mel saw that Rover's ears were standing up, as the dog moved slowly and watchfully toward the door of the circus quarters. "Somebody's at the door," said Bolam in a low voice. Almost as he spoke, there came the sound of a buzzer. "Maybe it's Hakin," suggested Mel. "No, Hakin has a key. He wouldn't ring. And he wouldn't stand out there waiting before making up his mind to come in." Bolam went to the door and spoke into the phone. "Who is it?" "Third Mate Coggins, with a message from Captain Duval. He wants to speak to you, Mr. Turino. Your friend, Mr. Hakin, is in trouble." Bolam pressed a button, and a screen lit up alongside the door. Sure enough, the square-jawed man standing there wore an officer's uniform. Bolam demanded, "What sort of trouble?" "Well, sir, it seems that Mr. Hakin accused a passenger of trying to kill him. And the passenger said he was drunk, and there was a fight. The other passengers who were standing around broke it up, but I'm afraid Mr. Hakin was injured slightly. Besides, the passenger preferred charges against him." "I see," said Bolam coldly. "Who is this passenger?" "I don't know anything about that. All that Captain Duval wanted me to do was tell you about it, and ask you to come to see him." "I'll do that, all right," said Bolam grimly. "I want to talk to him as much as he wants to talk to me." He turned to Mel. "It's time we had this out," he said. "You stay here, Mel. Don't let anybody in." "I won't," promised Mel, and Bolam pressed the button that controlled the door, and went out. Mel watched in the screen as Bolam and the officer moved off down the corridor. The next few minutes went slowly. Rover had quieted down once they found the man at the door, but now, suddenly, he started to growl again. "Take it easy, Rover," said Mel. "Nobody's at the dour now." But Rover didn't quiet down. "What's wrong, boy?" asked Mel. The dog made strange whining sounds as he looked pleadingly into Mel's face. "This is one of those times," said Mel, "when I wish you could talk. You're uneasy about something, aren't you?" The dog's growling stopped. For a moment he stood near Mel, listening to something that Mel couldn't hear. Then he dashed off, past cage after cage, toward the other end of the circus quarters, away from the door. Puzzled, Mel followed him. Instead of keeping on toward the next room, the dog stopped at the wall. "I don't hear a thing," said Mel. "Is there something on the other side?" Rover's head moved up and down. "You've got sharp ears, Rover. Sharper than mine or any other human's. If you hear something, it must be there." Mel stared at the wall. It was of a gray alloy, and looked like any other wall he had seen in the ship. And no matter how hard he strained to hear, no noise from the other side registered on his own ears. All the same, he was willing to stake his life on it that Rover wasn't wrong. Something was going on behind that gray wall. Suddenly he was aware of a thin line of black that ran up and down for about three inches on the gray. As he watched, the line grew. And now he could hear a slight hissing sound. He knew now what was happening. Somebody was cutting through the wall with a small atomic torch, the thin heat-blade slicing through the alloy as easily as if it had been made of cheese. He began to back away from the wall. Unexpectedly, a voice spoke: "Hold it, you. Don't make another move." At first he stopped in surprise. Then he thought, "That's nonsense. The man on the other side doesn't see me. He's just guessing that I'm here." And he took another quiet step away. The voice growled, "I said to hold it. I'm sending an x-ray beam through the wall, and I can see you just as plainly as if I were looking through glass. And this gun I have can plug you through the alloy with no trouble at all. Stay put, kid, and lift your hands into the air." He froze into place and lifted his hands as the man had directed. Another growl said, "That's better. Don't try to pull any fast ones, or you'll be sorry." The thin black line, completing two sides of a square, began to slice through the third. In another minute or so, Mel knew, the opening would be completed, and the unwelcome visitor would come in. CHAPTER 4 THE CURIOUS KABROR WHOEVER had tried to wreck the circus before was now going to make another attempt. Hakin and Bolam Turino weren't here to stop him, and it was up to Mel to do the job. And he was helpless before the stranger's gun. The third side of the square was completed, the fourth black line began to grow. Mel's mind worked feverishly. A wild idea came into it, was rejected, and came back. Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn't. What had the man threatened? He'd "plug" Mel, not "blast" him. That meant he had a gun which shot not a ray, but some small projectile. That meant— No use trying to figure out the details, he decided suddenly. He'd have to act fast, or the chance to act at all would be gone. He threw himself suddenly against the wall, and began to run alongside it as fast as he could. From the other side there came a sharp noise. The wall seemed to bang against him as if someone had hit it with a hammer. There came another hammer blow, and then another. But no bullet came through, no rojectile to tear his flesh. He had guessed right. If he had tried to run away from the wall, the man wouldn't have had to shoot at such a sharp angle, and the bullet, hitting the gray alloy, almost head on, would have torn its way through. But because of the way he was running, the man had to fire at him almost alongside the wall. The angle between wall and bullet path was too narrow, and the bullet couldn't penetrate. Instead of tearing through, it had bounced off, just as a flat stone could be made to bounce off the surface of a pond when thrown at a sharp angle. Meanwhile he had reached the other end of the room, near the cages. He was reasonably safe now, he thought. But he wouldn't be in another few seconds, when the man resumed the business of cutting through the metal, and the square of gray alloy fell out of the wall. If there was any way to stop the intruder, he'd have to think of it in a hurry. If he only had some weapon, something with which he could neutralize the man's guns— He darted suddenly for the closet to which Bolam had returned the black box. A quick pressure of his trembling finger on the first green button, and the robot made to resemble Bolam came out. That was his weapon, thought Mel. The robot would defend him. Another green button, to direct the metal man down the room. In another moment Mel would press the yellow, in an effort to send it against the man breaking in. And then the purple to give the man a shock he wouldn't forget. The robot was marching down the room toward the spot where the wall was being cut through. The black square was almost completed now, and as Mel watched, the atomic flame sliced through the last three inches. The gray metal hung there for a second, then clanged into the room. The man who stepped through the opening was wearing an officer's uniform. Mel noted with surprise that he was the same square-jawed man who called himself Third Mate Coggins and had delivered the message to Bolam a few minutes earlier. Mel's mind hardly had a chance to absorb that fact and to wonder whether Bolam had walked into a trap, when the man caught sight of the robot. Mel enjoyed seeing the change that came over him. His face showed both alarm and shock. Mel pressed the yellow button and the purple. The robot wasn't acting right. Instead of attacking, it came to a stop. The man, shrinking away from it in alarm, had time to pull his gun. And the next moment the gun began to pump bullets at the robot's metal body. Mel could hear the ping, ping, as the bullets bounced off. So could the intruder, for he stopped suddenly, as if dazed. It was at that very moment that Rover, of whom Mel had lost sight, chose to leap at him. Rover's full weight caught the man in the chest and knocked him over. Then the dog's jaws clamped on the arm that held the gun. Unexpectedly, the robot moved into action again. Not against the man, but against the dog. To Mel's horror, its metal arms tore Rover away from the man and threw him against a wall, just as they had thrown the tiger. But the man didn't escape unscathed. Before they were torn away, Rover's jaws managed to rip off the sleeve of his uniform, and the gun went flying from the helpless fingers. The robot was approaching the dog grimly again, when Mel hastily pressed the robot's "neutral" button. The bulky metal figure, less than a foot away from the dog, froze into a twisted, motionless statue. The man had his fingers on the gun again, when once more Rover leaped at him. Man and dog were struggling fiercely, rolling over and over on the floor. Mel put the black box down and ran toward them. He pulled the gun out of the man's fingers and hit him over the head with it. All the muscles of the man's body relaxed at once, and he fell back as limp as a rag doll. Rover let go of the man's arm and Mel looked at him. The dog's tongue was hanging from his mouth, and he was panting for breath. It had been knocked out of him, thought Mel, not by the fight with the man, but by being thrown against the wall by the robot. And by the electric shock which the metal creature had given him. "Are you all right, Rover?" asked Mel. He ran his hand over the dog's side. "No bones broken?" Rover seemed to nod. Mel stared down at the unconscious man. "Outside of that crack on the head I gave him, he doesn't seem to be hurt," said Mel thoughtfully. "You didn't bite him. I guess you've learned not to hurt human beings, haven't you, Rover? Maybe that's what went wrong with the robot. It was built to train animals, and to knock them around when necessary. But it was built not to act against human beings. That's why it wouldn't move against this fellow. I guess I'd have known that if I hadn't been so excited." He scratched his head sheepishly. "It took me a while to realize, but I got there finally. I forgot that a robot doesn't have any real brains. It can't really think as well as you can, Rover. You wouldn't hurt the man, but you stopped him from hurting me. The robot not only refused to move against him, it attacked you, just because you were an animal." The man stirred, without opening his eyes. "He must have known that a robot wouldn't hurt him," said Mel. "But in that case, why was he afraid of it?" And then the answer came to him: "He mistook the robot for Bolam! And he didn't expect Bolam to be here." Mel nodded, pleased with himself for having figured that out. "Keep an eye on him, Rover," he ordered. "I'm going to take a look at the stuff he brought with him." Mel approached the square opening that the man had cut into the wall. On the other side of it he found a small atomic torch and an x-ray flashlight, as well as a pair of spectacles with an opaque screen for converting the x-rays into visible images. There was nothing to indicate who the man was, or what else he had intended to do. But that, Mel decided, was easy to guess. He returned to the place where the man was lying. "Probably came here to wreck the circus," said Mel. "But there's just a chance that he had something else in mind. Just a chance that he came here to get me. Maybe I can find out by searching him." He began to go through the man's clothes. In one of the pockets of the uniform jacket he found a wallet. This contained a few bills, but no mark of identification. There was still nothing to indicate who the man was. The man groaned, and tried to sit up. Mel stepped back, on the alert. The man might be exaggerating the extent of his helplessness, waiting for an opportunity to turn the tables on his captors. Mel couldn't afford to take chances. But the man didn't seem to be faking. The blow on the head that Mel had given him had not only knocked him out but left him, even now, dazed and slow-moving. He opened his eyes and glared at his captors, and at first the only thing Mel could read in his expression was hate. Hate because a boy and a dog had stopped him short. A second later his eyes seemed to narrow a little, and now Mel knew that the dazed feeling was beginning to pass, and the man had begun to think of getting away from them. "Don't try it, Mister," he said grimly. "Rover can move faster than you can, and whatever you try to do, you won't make it. And this time, he might hurt you. He doesn't want to, but he isn't a robot, and if I tell him to, he'll do it." "You're a fool, kid," said the man. "Maybe the two of you could keep me here if I was alone. But I'm not alone. I've got friends on this ship, and in a few minutes they're going to come looking for me. And you won't be able to stop them and keep an eye on me at the same time." Mel bit his lips. "You might be right at that." The man saw that he was worried. "You bet I'm right. The best thing you can do is let me go. I'll get out of here and I won't bother you again." "I can believe that," said Mel. "You wouldn't bother me again—until you could come back here with those friends you're talking about." Suddenly he laughed. "I may not be old enough to vote, but I'm not the fool you think I am. Bolam and Hakin will want to take a look at you, and I have an idea they won't want to turn you loose. I'm holding you for them." The man's expression, which had begun to be hopeful, now became surly. "It'll be too bad for you when my friends show up," he warned. "I wonder about that. Maybe you have friends coming after you and maybe you don't. In any case, I'm not going to take any chances with a tricky customer like you. Stand up." Slowly the man obeyed. And once more his eyes narrowed, as if calculating his chances. "I'm telling you again, Mister, you'd better not try it," said Mel. "Rover, if he tries to get away, don't be so gentle with him. Stand still, Mister, and just in case you feel like starting something, take a look at my dog's teeth. Sharp, aren't they? Think about them while I finish searching you." Mel's hands moved swiftly over the man's body. Stuck to the man's forearm he found a pencil gun, which he removed. Evidently, this was a tough customer, who came prepared for all kinds of trouble. There was no sign of any other weapon that Mel could see. "Now, march. Straight down the room. And you stick close to him, Rover." The man's face flushed with anger, but he walked slowly ahead of them until Mel's command halted him. Mel slid open the door of a small plastic-walled cage in which a furry animal was sleeping. "In here!" "In there?" The man's voice showed how startled and furious he was. "In that cage? With that flea-bitten beast?" "Why not? The animal's hibernating, he won't hurt you. I don't think he has fleas, but if he has they're hibernating too. And even if he were awake, I think you're more vicious than he is. I'll bet you'd bite him before he'd bite you." "Look, you little fool, don't talk to me like that!" shouted the enraged man. "I'm not getting in there with that beast! There isn't enough room." "There's room to sit. And maybe you won't have to wait long for Bolam and Hakin to come back. Get in." "No." Rover growled, and Mel said, "I suppose you want Rover to coax you. Show him your teeth again, Rover. And take a bite out of him, just to give him an idea of how it feels. Where would you like to get bitten, Mister, in the leg or in the arm?" The man shrank away from Rover. "Keep your dog off me," he said hoarsely. "I'll go into the cage." Mel smiled. "I thought you'd change your mind." Cursing to himself, the man crawled in. Mel slid the door shut and locked it. "Thanks for telling me about your friends," he said. "I'll be watching for them." He and Rover took their positions by the door that had been cut in the wall. He had the two guns he had taken from the intruder, and Rover was more alert than any man could be. If he were taken by surprise, Mel thought, it would be his own fault. But there were no more visitors. Not until a half hour later was there any further sound from outside. And then, when his watch by the wall was interrupted, it was by Bolam and Hakin, who entered through the door. Hakin looked woebegone, and Mel asked quickly, "What happened?" "Far too much, O My Young Friend," said Hakin sadly. He stared at the cage, and his eyes popped wide open at sight of the man inside it. "But events seem to have taken place here too. Where did you snare this ferocious beast?" "He cut a hole in the wall and came in. Rover brought him down." Mel explained what had taken place, and the two men nodded. "Of course a robot wouldn't attack a human being," said Bolam. "I thought you knew that." "I guess I did, but I was excited and forgot. Anyway, everything came out all right. And I thought maybe you wanted to ask this fellow some questions." "We do indeed, O Prudent One," said Hakin. "There are some questions we should dearly like to ask this newfound friend of ours. But we cannot do so now. Observe him." "Why, he's sitting there quietly—say, he's asleep!" exclaimed Mel. "Naturally, My Young Adventurer. A hibernating animal does not breathe rapidly, but he does breathe. And in a cage of this kind there is very little circulation of air. What air is present is gradually saturated with hibernine, the drug we employed to put the beast to sleep. The man has been breathing for a half hour now the hibernine that came from the animal's lungs. No wonder his rebellious impulses have been quelled." "But you can wake him up, can't you?" "That would require less than an hour," said Hakin. "The awakening process is simple. We need but take the dormant one out of the cage and leave him exposed to the pure air of our space ship. The hibernine will slowly be expelled from his system, and then all that will be necessary will be to shake him a little." Bolam reached into the cage and dragged the man out. "This is the same one who said he had a message for me from the Captain," he observed. "It was a fake message, wasn't it?" "Sure," rumbled Bolam. "It was supposed to lure me into a trap. I suspected it at the time, but I didn't say anything to you about it or let on in any way because I wanted to find out what they'd do. I thought it was time we got a look at the space rats who were trying to wreck our circus." "Well, did you?" "Not much of a look. I had an idea they had caught Hakin—" The rubbery Venusian's face took on a sheepish look—"and so they had." "My beautiful voice betrayed me," said Hakin sadly. "They heard me exchanging a few words with a passenger, and from the magic of the sounds I produced, as well as the wisdom of what I said, they deduced my identity. Then they ambushed me as I came around a corner, and to put it vulgarly, knocked me out." "I'm not so easy to knock out," said Bolam. "Besides, as I told you, I was expecting a trap. I headed for the Captain's cabin and kept my eyes open. As it happened, it wasn't my eyes that saved me, but my nose. When I smelled something like Martian oranges, only a little sharper, I decided that I had better hold my breath for a while. Then, as I took a few more steps forward, I pretended to stagger. "They grabbed me in a hurry. They didn't want to wait too long for fear some one would come along and spot them. The first thing they did was drag me into one of the staterooms. I didn't put up much resistance until we got inside the room. There, as I expected, I found Hakin. What a sad sight he was." Hakin nodded. "I was indeed a portrait of dolor." "After I found him, I gave them a little surprise of their own. I let them learn that I wasn't as weak as I had pretended. They didn't know how strong I was, and I had the pleasure of cracking a few crooked heads together. It was more fun than I had had in days." "And you say that you didn't get a good look at them?" asked Mel. "No. They had stolen an idea from you by dressing as crewmen and smearing their faces with grease, I knocked a couple of them out, but the others had guns, and I had to beat a quick retreat with Hakin. The noise of shooting, of course, aroused the ship, and I was able to get Captain Duval to do what we had asked him to do before—start investigating his passengers. Just to prove that his intentions were good, he threw in an investigation of his officers and crewmen for good measure." "The Delaying One will find nothing now," said Hakin gloomily. "The criminals have had too much warning." "You forget that space on the ship is limited," said Bolam. There aren't many places to hide, and the Captain knows them better than any one else does. Also, he knows his crewmen and officers. He's liable to dig up one or two of the men who attacked me. And if he gets one that will talk, he may get them all." "Do you suppose that our Beautiful Sleeping Friend here will bare his soul to us?" asked Hakin, as he indicated the man Rover and Mel had captured. "He may," said Bolam. "I'll try awakening him soon. First, however, we'll have to put that big square of metal back into the wall." "There's an atomic torch he brought along," said Mel. "He used it to cut through the alloy." "Fine," said Bolam. "I think I can adjust the flame for welding." Mel and Rover kept their distance as the two men fitted the square of gray alloy back into the wall. Hakin held the square in place with two suction disks, so that it wouldn't fall through on the other side, and Bolam applied the torch along the edges. The flame wasn't as hot as when it was used for cutting. The temperature was just low enough to melt the alloy and let the edges flow together. When the job was finished, there was a slightly uneven line where the cut had been made, but except for appearance, the wall was now as good as new. "That'll keep unwelcome visitors out," said Bolam. "Now to awaken our friend. Hakin, let me do the talking. What I want to say to this fellow I can say without flowers." He picked the man off the floor and shook him like a terrier shaking a rat. The man opened bewildered eyes. "What—" "Remember me?" said Bolam grimly. "I was supposed to walk into your trap, and be caught. I walked into it all right but I kicked it to pieces. What will Closker think of that?" "I—I don't know what you're talking about." "You were a little slow saying that," observed Bolam "You know, all right. You were hired by Gard Closker to wreck the animal collection of our circus. How much did he pay you?" "Nobody paid me anything." "You mean you do wrecking because you like it? Don't try to tell me that. Who are your pals on board this ship?" "I don't have any pals," said the man sullenly. "We're not getting much out of you," said Bolam. "You'd better talk for your own good. My guess is that you're a professional crook either on Earth or on one of the other planets, and that your fingerprints and the retinal patterns of your eyes are on file. It won't be hard to get identification. And you've already been guilty of at least three crimes—impersonating an officer, breaking into our quarters, and trying to murder Mel here. You've done enough to be sent up for life, especially if you already have a criminal record." The man licked his lips. "You can't scare me," he said. "Even if you put me in the brig, my pals will get me out before we land on Mars." "I am always pleased to meet an optimist," said Hakin. "My own philosophy is to look on the bright side of everything. But it appears to me that I detect a contradiction in your words, O Crooked One. A moment ago you had no friends. And now they are getting you out of custody." "They'll be lucky if they can keep out of the brig themselves," said Bolam. "The Captain's rounding them up right now." The man's eyes shifted warily around as if looking for a way to escape. Mel said, "You ought to know by now that you can't get away. Rover can move a lot faster than you can. And he's just aching for the chance to get at you." As if to emphasize his words, Rover growled, and the man edged away from the dog. Hakin said, "This animal does not please you, O Stubborn One?" "That confounded dog was the one who caught me." "There are worse companions," said Hakin. He asked casually, "How, O Uninvited Guest, would you enjoy the companionship of Felix Tigris?" "Felix who?" "That is the name of our tiger. The happy beast you managed to let loose a little while ago. I think that his cage would he large enough to hold you." "You wouldn't do that!" cried the man, his voice shaking. "I wonder much," said Hakin. "When circumstances demand action, who among us knows what he will do? We wish you to speak—and you say nothing. Perhaps the tiger will loosen your tongue. Perhaps also, once he has made your acquaintance, you would be of little use to us. Still, one must take these chances." "That would be murder!" "Would it, O Sanctimonious One? I recall that you were willing to let the tiger loose on the passengers in the rest of the ship." "I didn't mean any harm," whined the man. "The Striped One means no harm either," said Hakin dryly. "He wishes only to approach you and be your friend. He desires to surround you with his friendship." "You'll be pretty warm," said Bolam. "You'll have a living fur coat around you." Mel looked from Hakin to Bolam, trying to decide whether they would really put the man in with the tiger. They wouldn't, he concluded. It was just a bluff to make the man talk. But it was a good enough bluff to make him sweat with fear. "The tiger is a nice friendly beast," went on Bolam. "In fact, all our animals are friendly." He suddenly snapped his fingers at an idea. "Especially the kabror. How about the kabror, Hakin?" Hakin's face brightened. "There is an idea indeed, O Man of Mind and Muscles. I was forgetting the kabror. You a right, it is a nice friendly beast. He biteth not, neither do he scratch. He asks but to enjoy the warmth of human affection. The more I think of it, the more do I think the idea wonderful one, O Bolam. We shall put this man-beast in with the kabror." "No!" cried the man. "You can't do that!" "We can. You make a sad mistake, My Timid Guest," said Hakin. "I fear that you do not really know what the kabrol can do. That is why you shun him, and misjudge him so cruelly. When you get to know him, you will love him the way—the way he will love you," he concluded with a grin. Bolam took a grip of the man's collar in his powerful hands and dragged the man to the kabror's cage. Mel saw once again the three-legged creature that Rover had prevented from escaping into the ship. The man fought hard, but Bolam's grip was unbreakable. Hakin slid the door open, and the man began to scream. Bolam's face wore an expression of contempt as his arm swung forward and the man stumbled in. The door closed on his screams. Mel stared uneasily at the beast inside the cage, for the first time taking a good look at it. He had seen kangaroos in the zoo, and except for the fact that the kabror had one leg less, this looked like a small kangaroo. The beast was about three feet high, and two of its legs were short and delicate, like arms, held close to its head. But the third leg, on which it leaped, was broad and powerful, taking the place of the kangaroo's two hind legs. The face was small, but wider than a kangaroo's, and the eyes were rounder. Just now they were regarding with considerable affection the newcomer to the crowded cage. "What does the kabror do?" asked Mel. "Nothing, O Seeker After Knowledge. He does nothing at all. A pleasant beast indeed is the kabror, a true philosopher of the animal kingdom. He but sits in his cage and loves his neighbor in his own way." "Then why did you put the man in there?" "The kabror has a great appetite. He likes to eat, espeially human food—don't be afraid, I don't mean that he eats human beings. Just food that human beings eat. And sometimes he's afraid that some other creature will steal the food he wants. So he takes steps to protect the food. And what steps! I'll show you." Bolam took from a locker what appeared to be a small piece of bread. "It's a special biscuit for some of our birds," he explained. "Actually, it's enough like bread to appeal to fair three-legged friend." He opened the door to the cage and threw in the bread. The kabror went over to the bread and sniffed it. The man shrank away, looking as if he expected to be tortured. Mel wondered curiously what was happening inside the cage. Rover seemed uneasy and drew back. A second later, Mel understood why. Something invisible hit him in the face and made his head jerk back. He said, "Whew, what a smell!" And he moved away from the cage. "Yes, O Sharp-Nosed One," said Hakin with a grin. "This is a perfume to put all other perfumes to shame. In all the planets of the solar system, and in all their satellites, there is nothing like it. Have you ever, My Young Friend, smelled a skunk? Compared to a kabror, a skunk sheds the fragrance of a petunia. But the kabror, being of a gentle nature, does not use his odor to harm his victims. He employs it merely to protect his food. When one sniffs his scent, one loses the desire to eat. And even if hunger made eating necessary, swallowing one's food would still be impossible. Unless, that is, one happened to be a kabror oneself. Regard the happy beast." The kabror was holding the piece of biscuit up in its small forepaws and nibbling joyfully at it. But Mel didn't feel much like looking. He said, "I can't take much of this. I want to get out of here." "No need of that," said Bolam. He threw a switch that was on a small control board on the wall. "We prepared for our fragrant friend before we moved him in here." Mel became conscious of a breeze around his head, and the smell weakened. A small motor was creating suction toward a grill in the ceiling, and the odor was being rapidly swept toward it from around the cage. But it wasn't being swept up so much from the cage itself. There the odor must have been as strong as ever, for while the kabror nibbled the biscuit, the man inside was trying to hide himself from it in corner, with his arm over his agonized face, as if hoping to filter the smell out through his sleeve. Suddenly he took his arm away and tried to spring up, banging his head against the low top of the cage. "Let me out of here!" he cried. "Let me out!" "You'll have to talk first," said Bolam grimly. "I'll talk, I'll tell you anything. Only let me out!" "Did Closker send you?" "Yes, Closker sent me. He told me to stop you any way I could, even murder. But I didn't go in for that." "Too much of a gentleman to commit murder unless you get paid for it," said Bolam dryly. "How did you let the animals loose the first time?" "It was one of my crewmen who did that. When he went through here, he put a tiny electromagnetic pellet in each cage door lock. You didn't notice it, but once a current was sent through, the pellet pushed the lock to the left. We sent the current through by radio beam, from outside the same wall I cut through before." He choked. "Let me out of here and I'll tell you the rest!" "If you get out, you might change your mind. You'll do your talking first," insisted Bolam. "How is it that we didn't notice the pellets?" "You didn't expect to find them. After they opened the locks, they fell to the floor, and we disintegrated them by sending an extra surge of power through them. And once the cage door was unlocked, all an animal had to do was push accidentally, and it would open." "A most ingenious scheme, O Sniffer of Heavenly Scents," said Hakin. "A tribute to the ingenuity of the modern criminal mind. No wonder we had no idea how the deed was one." "Let me out of here and I'll tell you everything. Please," begged the man. "I can't stand it in here any more." "That is most unfortunate," said Hakin. But he and Bolam exchanged glances. "Nonetheless, perhaps there is such a thing as a surfeit of delight. And if our Visiting One changes his mind and refuses to talk, we can always throw him back in again." "He deserves to be thrown back," argued Bolam. "He was willing to let the kabror loose on the whole ship. And the ship's purification system wouldn't be able to deodorize the air, as we can do with our special setup. That smell would hive been circulating and recirculating through the whole ship for days, until they could put up special purifiers." "I know that full well, O Wide One," said Hakin. "But I think that our visitor has learned his lesson." He approached the cage. "I shall let you out of here, My Not Exactly Friend. But do not cease to impart your most interesting information, or you will return at once. Do you understand?" "I'll tell you anything, anything, only let me out and don't send me back here!" Hakin unlocked the cage, and the man stumbled out. A few steps away from the cage he took a deep breath, and then let the clean air out again with a sigh. Rover approached him and eyed him warily. "Who are your pals?" demanded Bolam. "Two are disguised as crewmen, and one is a passenger. The passenger is Asteroid Charlie—" A sudden push tilted the ship, and sent it spinning around and around on a wobbly horizontal axis. Mel, like the others, was knocked against a wall. The cages, like all other objects classifiable as furniture or cargo, were clamped down, but inside them the frightened beasts tumbled head over heel and began to howl, roar, or whimper, as their nature mandated. Mel, shaken, fell to the floor. A second later he got up on his hands and knees just in time to see the man heading the door out into the main section of the ship. CHAPTER 5 MEL MAKES A FRIEND –AND LOSES HER THE only one who kept his head entirely was Rover. His paws slipped on the tilted floor, and the wobbling spin of the ship must have disturbed his sense of balance, but somehow he managed to move along without slipping in time to reach their escaping prisoner. Just as the man was rising from the floor to open the door, Rover's jaws clamped on to his left ankle. The man yelled, but Mel said, "Good boy, Rover." Bolam and Hakin were busy calming the excited animals, who seemed more terrified by their loss of balance than by anything else that had happened. When the two men saw, however, that no real physical damage had been done, they turned to their captive again. Bolam said, "Nice work, Rover, in holding on to him. I think he's the only one of his gang we have left. I have an idea that the pals he was just telling us about have made their getaway." He went to a wall phone and called the Captain's cabin He spoke briefly, and without hearing the other end of the conversation Mel found it impossible to understand what being said. After a while, however, Bolam explained. "That bunch of crooks knew that their pal was caught, and they realized that sooner or later they'd be picked up too. Either he'd squeal on them, or the Captain would find them in his search. So they sneaked into a lifeboat and jetted away. They made a clumsy takeoff, and the reaction from their jump spun the entire vessel around." "Do you think they'll make a complete getaway?" asked Mel. "It won't be easy to pick them up in space. We can't follow them, and there are no patrol ships nearby. All the spaceports are being notified, and if they try to land the lifeboat somewhere they'll be caught, but I have an idea they won't do that. They probably planned to take off and meet another ship in space. And it was probably arranged by Closker, the man who hired them." "At least," said Hakin, "we still possess our Loved One here." He indicated the man held by Rover. "And he will testify against Closker." Mel wondered who this Closker was. But for the moment, Bolam and Hakin were too busy with other things to explain. "I'm afraid," said Bolam, "that his word alone won't convince the authorities. It'll be just his say-so against Closker's. And Closker is an important man. Besides, this character might even change his story later, and claim we forced him to lie under threat of torture." "What are you going to do with him?" asked Mel. "Turn him over to the Captain?" "We'd better," said Bolam. "We don't want to take care of him." "If for no other reason than to give our noble Rover's teeth a long rest," agreed Hakin. A short time later their captive had been placed in the brig. Mel took a deep breath. "Well, now that we don't have to worry about those crooks any more, I guess we can relax." "Only until we land on the Red Planet, O Hopeful One," said Hakin. "Closker is persevering. He will be sure to try again." "Why?" asked Mel. "Who is Closker, anyway? Does he hate you for personal reasons?" "Personal and business," said Bolam. "Closker had the interplanetary circus field practically to himself for about twenty years. Oh, I don't say there wasn't any competition at all, but it didn't amount to much, and Closker was shrewd enough to see to it that it didn't grow. Some competitors he forced out of business by cutting prices. Others he bought out." "When we went to work for him, he made us lots of promises. He never had a strong man as powerful as me, or an India rubber man as lithe as Hakin. He wanted to try us out for a while, to see how we went over, and then he said he'd raise our salaries to what we should be getting." "We were of little knowledge then," said Hakin. "We accepted his word all too readily. Alas, it proved but a frail reed. I played many roles—sometimes a giant, sometimes a living skeleton. I can stretch to a height of nine feet when I so desire. Both My Strong Friend and I learned to play the clown. Yes, we were exceedingly useful to Closker. But our salaries did not grow. They remained stunted, and when we mentioned that unhappy fact to Closker, he never lacked an excuse. This was our miserable fate for two years or more. Finally, we expressed our dissatisfaction to him with some force." Hakin paused, and Mel looked from one man to the other. He noticed that Rover, sitting alongside him, was listening, too, and he wondered how much the dog could understand. Rover looked as if he understood everything, but he just couldn't be that smart, thought Mel. "He laughed at us," went on Hakin. "Closker, the Much Amused One, laughed heartily at us. He told us that he controlled the circus business, and that if we did not relish that fact, we might take our departure. There was but one other interplanetary circus that made tours then, and he announced that if this rival attempted to hire us, he would take steps force the unfortunate ones out of business without delay. We could either accept the salary he was willing to pay us, or have nothing." Hakin paused. "I was about to express my full opinion of Closker, the Disgusting One," he continued, "but Bolam, less hot-headed, restrained me." "It doesn't pay to blow your top," put in Bolam. "Not with a man like Closker. A man like him doesn't scare, and he keeps his temper always. Almost always, anyway. If you blow yours, if you get to the point where you're so mad you can't think or see straight, he's got you where he wants you." "The Powerful One has an advantage in keeping his temper," said Hakin. "His mighty muscles." "I don't understand," began Mel. "What do muscles have to do with it?" "What Hakin means," explained Bolam, "is that I'm so strong that I can afford to keep calm. If somebody pushed you in a crowd, even by accident, you might get angry and think he meant it intentionally. If somebody pushes me, or steps on my foot, I usually assume it was an accident. Nobody picks fights with a man that looks like me. Haven't you ever noticed, Mel, that it's the little guys you know who are the most touchy, and have the biggest tendency to wear a chip on their shoulders? It's the big husky men who tend to take it easy." "I guess that's true," admitted Mel. "But you were telling me about Closker." "What I was saying was that I kept my temper and made Hakin keep his. I pretended to be overwhelmed by Closker's words. I thought it over and said, yes, he had us in a spot, and there was nothing to do about it but accept it. Maybe another man wouldn't have been able to fool him, but I was, because again my muscles helped. Closker didn't know me so well then, although he thought he did, and he figured that because I had big muscles, I was musclebound in the head too. That's a mistake a lot of people make. I let Closker make it without setting him straight." "We continued to labor in the Treacherous One's circus," interposed Hakin. "But we began also to exercise our minds for our own benefit at the same time. We studied the economics of the circus, we learned how Closker secured his animals and his trained acts, how he arranged his tours. We noted how much applause the different acts received, we mingled with the crowds and listened to the way ignorant spectators spoke about us and our colleagues. We attempted to learn the secret of popularity. At the end of a few years we knew more about certain aspects of circus operation than Closker himself did." "That sounds like boasting," said Bolam, "but it's true. Meanwhile, we made contact with acrobats and other performers whom Closker had cheated as he had cheated us. We saved most of our money, as much of it as he paid us. And when finally we felt that we were ready, we quit, and started a circus of our own." He absent-mindedly scratched Rover's head. "At first, Closker cursed us, but didn't do anything about our circus. We were operating on credit, and he didn't realize how much we really knew. He figured that we owed so much, we'd soon go bankrupt. But we had laid out a profitable tour, and the money came in fast enough to help us pay off all our debts in plenty of time. We ended the first season debt-free. "After that Closker began to take us seriously, which means that he began to play dirty tricks. Well, we were ready for him. We had seen some of the tricks he had played on other circuses, and we were able to take a few precautions. He wasn't able to hurt us, and we kept on making money and growing. By now he's really beginning to be worried about us. He'll be even more worried when he sees how make out on Mars." Mel said, "I've never seen an interplanetary circus performance." "Wait till you get to Mars with us, and you'll see something worth watching. Unless you're in a hurry to meet your friend, Mr. Armstrong." "I guess I won't be able to get to him," said Mel. "He doesn't know anything about me." "After that message you sent?" asked Hakin. "Come, my Young Friend, the man can surely read." "But the message wasn't sent," Mel reminded him. "Oh, there is something of which I have neglected to inform you, O Worried One," said Hakin carelessly. "After the Powerful One secured my release from the criminals our noble Captain was blaming his own lack of intelligence for paying so little heed to our warning. Bolam and I encouraged his feeling of remorse for a time, and then said that would forgive him if he would send that message for you. By now this John Armstrong must have received a radiogram informing him that you are on your way to Mars." "Gee, you're a couple of swell guys," said Mel huskily. "I never thought—" "Let this be a lesson to you, Young Friend," said Hakin gravely. "Always think. Take nothing for granted. Like Rover here, let your mind be prepared for everything. Even when he is asleep, this sensible beast remains on guard. Do you not, Rover?" Hakin stretched out a four foot arm to scratch the do, head. Mel said slowly, "I suppose I have been taking thin for granted. Ever since I got on the ship, I thought I shot off whoever was trying to kill me. Now I'm not so sure any more." "Do you have any idea who it is?" asked Bolam. "I don't know. I haven't the slightest idea why any one would want to get me out of the way." "Who is John Armstrong?" "He was my father's partner. My father was an inventor." "Alas, Unfortunate One," said Hakin. "Don't get him wrong, Hakin, his inventions worked, and he sold them. Mr. Armstrong was more the absent minded professor type, with his head in the clouds. He and my father were working on robots, trying to figure out better methods of control. I'll bet those training robots you own use is one of the inventions they worked out." "Surprise would be out of place," said Hakin. "Go on, Young Friend." "That's why you might think I should have known that the training robot wouldn't attack a human being. But it's been a long time since I heard my father talk about robots." "Never mind apologizing," said Bolam. "What I'm trying to find out is why some one wants to take your life. When did the first attack take place?" "When I was fifteen," said Mel. "And it wasn't exactly an attack. Nobody hit me over the head, or anything like that. I had left this farmer I had been working for and held own a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant, not far from a spaceport. I used to get my meals free. I remember being hungry one day and taking a synthetic roast beef sandwich. After a couple of bites, I realized there was something wrong. I found out later what it was. The sandwich was poisoned." "What did you do?" "I tried to tell the restaurant owner that there was something wrong with the sandwich, but he got angry. He said he served nothing but the best. Anyway, I knew that it couldn't be a mistake, and it was clear that somebody had tried to poison me. And I had no idea who it was. I was scared, and I ran away, without even waiting to collect my week's pay." "The wisest thing you could have done," said Bolam. "It took me a while to find another job. This was in a factory making transistors on an assembly line. I was an office boy. One day, when I went on an errand to deliver something to a foreman, somebody tried to drop a crate on my head. It just missed me by an inch or two." "You didn't see the man who did it? You still didn't know why?" "No. The whole thing was a mystery to me. I hardly knew anybody in the place, outside the office, and I didn't have any fights with anybody." "It was obviously," said Bolam, "not a personal enemy in the sense that someone hated you. It was simply that you had to be got out of the way." "Why should any one want me out of the way?" "Suppose we guess. You say that your father had a partner. When he died, what happened to the business?" "I don't know," said Mel. "I was too young to think of such things." "Somebody thought of them. How about your father's friend, Armstrong?" "I haven't any idea what happened to him. He was travelling for a long time. I tried to send him letters, but they were always returned. Then I heard he had settled on Mars, and I thought that if I could get to see him, I'd learn what everything was all about. But I had been forced to change my job so often that I couldn't save up any money to pay for the passage. That's why I had to stow away." "Mr. Armstrong interests me," said Bolam. "When we get to Mars, we'll see what we can learn about him. Mean while, you should be reasonably safe on this ship. Especially if you stay in our circus quarters. And if Rover remains with you." Rover looked at him at the sound of his name, and Mel felt a thrill of confidence. Rover had a nose for danger. It wouldn't be easy to get to him while the dog was around. Hakin said, "In the meantime, My Muscled Partner, shall we proceed with our animal training? We did not bring thy kabror with us merely that he might perfume the ship." "Why did you bring him along?" asked Mel curiously. "He can be taught to do clever tumbling tricks. And he is practically odorless, unless one permits a fragment of the wrong kind of food to fall into his clutches." The kabror had long finished his biscuit, and there was only a faint odor now in the space around his cage. Hakin unlocked the cage, and the animal hopped out. He seemed, as Lakin had said earlier, to be an affectionate beast, but Mel could not help drawing away from him, just in case. "He knows already how to sit and how to leap into the air on command," said Hakin. "He is an apt pupil. Of much higher intelligence than the striped beast. Sit down, O Fragrant One." The kabror sat down on its one hind leg. "Up, O Martian Rose!" commanded Hakin. The kabror leaped slowly into the air, and just as slowly came down again. "Such acts are simple here," said Hakin, "so long as the gravity is low. That is one reason we prefer to train our beasts far out in space. Now we go on to something new. Up again!" he directed. The kabror leaped again, and this time Hakin used his long rubbery arms to turn its body in the air, so that the beast completed a full somersault before landing. "And yet again, O Emitter of Sweet Smells!" he coaxed. After five minutes the kabror could do the somersault by itself, and Hakin was highly pleased. Mel asked, "What will happen when he tries to do a somersault in Earth gravity?" "There will indeed be difficulties," admitted Hakin. "But the kabror has the necessary physical coordination to overcome them. Note that in this present low gravity he does not permit himself to leap too high. Of importance is the fact that here in the ship he can learn what is required of him." Rover had been watching the training session quietly, sitting on his haunches alongside Mel. Now he stood up and made talking sounds to Mel. Mel said, "What is it, Rover? Want to be an acrobat too?" The dog walked slowly out into the middle of the training space, then leaped into the air. He went a little too high, thought Mel, almost scraping the ceiling as he turned upside down. Then he seemed to drift down again, landing softly on his feet. "Not bad!" cried Mel. "That wasn't at all bad for a first try, was it, Hakin?" And Rover too looked at the rubber man for approval. "Very well indeed, O Clever Canine," said Hakin. "Now you try it, Mel," came Bolam's deep voice unexpectedly. "I?" Mel grinned self-consciously. "I never tried a somersault in my life. Never had time for things like that." "You can start having time right now. Come on, Mel. This ship is just the right place for you to learn and to acquire confidence." "I'm no acrobat." "No reason why you can't become one. You and Rover can put on an act together." "And why not the Fragrant One also?" demanded Hakin. "There's an idea," said Bolam. "A good act with the three of you would bring down the house. You've got nothing else to do with yourself on the ship, so you might as well practice. Your first show will go on in Marsopolis, and that should be easy. Mars has low gravity too—a little more than a third the gravity of Earth. Acrobats can get some really sensational effects there. Mars is a fine planet for practicing before an audience and gaining confidence in yourself." "I still think it's silly," said Mel. "But I suppose it won't do me any harm to try." He walked slowly and self-consciously into the middle of the practice space. "Do not use your full strength here, My Young Friend," advised Hakin. "Spring gently, without trying to turn in the air as yet. Learn what your muscles can do in this gravity." Mel tried to obey orders, and made what he thought was a modest jump. He rose high into the air, and lifted his hands just in time to push into the ceiling and keep from bumping his head against it. "It isn't the easiest thing in the world to adjust yourself," said Bolam. "The animals do it better than humans can, at first. But we get there eventually. Try again." Mel tried again, not quite so forcefully, and this time he stopped rising about a foot short of the ceiling, seemed to hang motionless in the air for a second, and then began to fall again. "Fine," said Bolam. "Now try the somersault." At the end of a quarter of an hour, Mel was performing the somersault with all the skill and apparent self-confidence of an old-timer. And alongside him, Rover and the kabror performed with equal confidence. "I think we've got the beginning of an act there," said Bolam. "There is indeed an act, O Powerful One," agreed Hakin. "It will bring down the house on Mars. But much practice is yet needed." "A couple of hours a day, at least," said Bolam. "The exercise will do you good, Mel. And you'll have something to keep you busy during the long trip still ahead of us." "I wasn't worried about keeping busy," said Mel. "I thought I'd learn to be an animal trainer." "You can learn that too," said Bohm. "But at first your learning is going to be limited to watching. It's going to be a long time before we allow you to handle the training robots. You'll have to learn a lot more about animals first." In a little while, the kabror was sent back to its cage. Mel and Rover continued practicing for a time, until Bolam made them stop. Mel protested, but Bolam was firm. "You're young, and your muscles don't feel tired, but all the same they're not used to this kind of exercise. Better go easy at first. You'll practice for a longer time tomorrow." Mel took a short quick shower. He knew that the water would be purified and recirculated, but even so there was a sign up in the shower room asking patrons to limit their use of water to the smallest amount possible. And just in case the patrons were disinclined to pay attention to the request, the showers were automatically adjusted to turn off after one minute. More a sprinkle than a shower, thought Mel, as he dressed in clean clothes that Hakin dug up for him. The rubber man had a fairly extensive wardrobe. Seeing that he could alter the shape of his body so greatly, he could wear suits of widely different sizes, and one of his pet economies was to buy for a very low price a suit which had been badly cut, or a pair of shoes that didn't quite match, and couldn't be sold to ordinary customers. He could, of course, change the size of his feet more easily than the tailor or shoemaker could change the size of clothes or shoes. Lacking Hakin's ability to expand or contract his body, Mel was careful to pick out clothes that actually fitted him. Hakin and Bolam were busy with their animals, and for the first time since he had stowed away, Mel was able to set foot boldly in the corridors of the ship, without fear of being caught. He was a passenger now, on just as good a footing as anybody else. And so was Rover, who followed him. The ship was no longer accelerating at all now, all the feeling of gravity being supplied by spin, so that the down direction was straight away from the center axis, and it wasn't necessary for anybody to use handgrips. The ship would continue without acceleration for weeks, except in case of emergency. The corridor down which Mel started was not far from the hull of the ship, and the gravity was about six-tenths of a gee. When they came to a ten-foot ladder that led farther toward the center, Mel at first hesitated, then decided to descend. Instead of round rungs, the ladder had fairly wide steps, for the convenience of the passengers, and Rover might have descended with their aid. But he didn't even try. Instead, he simply leaped down. "That's easy enough," said Mel. "But how about getting up?" There was no trouble getting up either. With the gravity so low, Rover could leap up the ten feet without too much difficulty. As they went in toward the axis of the ship, the gravity grew less. Rover adjusted to this fact without trouble, simply because he accepted it, without wasting time thinking about it. But Mel had to figure it out. "This spin-type gravity," he told Rover, "depends on how fast we're moving in a circle. Have you ever watched a wheel turning? The outside of the wheel moves fastest, while the middle just turns, hardly moving at all. And the spaces in-between turn at speeds that are in-between. That means that we feel less and less gravity as we go in, and when we reach the axis of the ship, we'll feel practically none at all. We'll just float freely in the air." Rover looked at him as if he understood, although Mel doubted whether he really did. Still, you could never be sure about Rover. In some ways, as Mel had already learned, he understood more than many people. As they walked along the corridors, passengers eyed them curiously. Dogs were rarely seen aboard space ships. Sometimes wealthy passengers took them along, but most people considered the cost of transportation too high to be wasted on a mere animal. Mel found that when you had a dog along, especially a handsome dog like Rover, it was easy to make friends. People stopped to pet him, and Rover, who had a quiet dignified manner, allowed them to do so, although sometimes Mel felt that if the dog had his rights, he would be petting some of them. He didn't feel that way, however, when a pretty redheaded girl stopped and said, "What a beautiful dog!" She was about his own age or a little less, with lively eyes that seemed to be laughing at him even when the rest of her face wasn't. Mel felt suddenly tongue-tied. He muttered, "Rover's all right." "All right? Why, he's handsome." "He's a lot better than that. He's a smart dog." The girl's eyebrows went up. "So you don't appreciate good looks? You prefer brains?" "I didn't say that. It just depends on what goes along with the looks. Now, in a girl—well, anyway, Rover has a lot more than the way he looks. He's a real friend." "That's something," she admitted. "Real friends aren't so easy to find." She patted Rover's head, and the dog stared gravely at her. "He saved the ship from a lot of trouble," said Mel. "You mean when those animals from the circus got loose? I didn't see it, but I heard the noise, especially when that tiger roared. That must have been terribly exciting for you. Weren't you thrilled?" Mel's tongue seemed to have loosened up, and now his face loosened too. He couldn't help smiling. "Thrilled? Almost to death." "I don't like the way you say that!" "I'd have been really dead if that tiger had got at me. I can do without that kind of excitement." "You're just an old sour-puss," she said. "I like excitement. What are you on this ship for?" "I'm going to Mars." "I know that," she said impatiently. "Everybody on the ship is going to Mars. What I mean is—what are you going to do when you get there?" "Meet some friends," said Mel. He knew better than to talk about the trouble he was having with unknown enemies. "And if I have any time," he added casually, "I'll do a couple of acrobatic acts in the circus." "Really? You mean to say that you're an acrobat? That must be thrilling!" "You get used to it," said Mel, as if the idea bored him. He didn't bother to tell her that so far he had practiced for less than an hour and had not got used to it. "I guess it seems glamorous to outsiders. But if you're part of the circus, like me, it's just a lot of hard work. Practice, practice, all the time." "I wish I were an acrobat. My uncle doesn't let me do anything. He says I have to act like a lady." "Personally," said Mel, "I like animal-training better. Wait till you see what that tiger of ours can do." "You do animal training too? I'm so jealous," she exclaimed, "I could just explode!" "That wouldn't be ladylike," said Mel. A man came down the corridor, a rather husky man of medium height. In his mouth he had one of the long expensive Martian cigars that he chewed on rather than smoked. He said, "Betty, I've been looking for you. I found a piano keyboard and a sound system in one of the cabins. It's time to practice your music lesson." "Oh, gosh, I thought that once we got on the ship I'd have a real vacation. I don't want to go over all those exercises again and again." "You can practice an hour each day, and still have a vacation. Come on, now." She made a face, and said, "You order me around just as if I were a slave." She turned to Mel. "Good-bye, maybe I'll see you again. What's your name?" "Mel Oliver." "I'm Betty—Betty Major. Mel Oliver, this is my uncle John Major." Her uncle stared at Mel from under thick brows almost as if he wished Mel weren't there. "Hurry up, Betty." Then she walked away down the corridor, with Mel and Rover looking after her. Mel said, "Not a bad-looking girl, is she, Rover? I guess it won't be so tough being on a ship with her after all. But that uncle of hers—there's something about him I don't like." Other passengers were coming along, and one or two officers. Mel recognized Mr. Laughlin, the officer who had formerly wanted to get rid of Rover. Laughlin smiled at him in a friendly way. "Having a good time?" "Yes," said Mel, rather coldly. "No thanks to you, though." "Still mad at me because of what happened with that dog? I can understand how you feel, Son. But aboard a space ship, a Captain's word is law to his crew. And we had our orders. If the Captain told me to, I'd walk out into space just as soon as I'd put a dog out. How do you feel about it, Rover?" Rover looked at him quietly, and made no sound. "You don't expect him to fall all over you, do you?" asked Mel. "He knows what you were going to do to him." "Maybe he does. But he's taking things calmly. I think that Rover has sense enough to let bygones be bygones." Laughlin moved off down the aisle, and Mel kept going. Maybe Laughlin had no choice than to obey orders, Mel thought, but he still didn't like the orders. He passed some of the passenger staterooms, and from one of them there came the tinkling sounds of an old piano. Somebody practicing, he thought, maybe Betty. He had to admit that the way she was playing, if she was the one, was not inspired. But he saw nothing to indicate that it was really Betty. And there was no sign of her uncle. Mel got back to the circus quarters without meeting any one else he knew or making any more new acquaintances. Bolam and Hakin were still busy with their animals, and he stood quietly aside and watched. The next few days passed without particular incident. Mel and Rover practiced tumbling and somersaults, gradually extending the practice period to two hours. The rest of the time Mel helped Bolam and Hakin in various ways, feeding the animals, cleaning the cages, and doing whatever odd job needed to be done. One of the oddest was giving the kabror a bath. The animal didn't seem to like the water, but put up no resistance, and when Mel was done with him, the creature's fur was nice and shiny. And strangely enough, he had a rather pleasant odor about him. "It wouldn't hurt to give you a bath, Rover," said Mel, "When's the last year you had one?" For the first time since he had met Rover, the dog behaved unreasonably. He hung back, and Mel, grinning, said, "You're not going to get out of this. Come on, Rover, get ready to take your punishment!" When he had finished with Rover, the dog looked as clean as the kabror. But he didn't appreciate his new condition. The first thing he did was to shake himself, splattering water over every one in his way. And then he ran away where Mel wouldn't be able to get at him, just in case Mel had any other bright ideas. After Mel was done with his tumbling and his other duties, he wandered through the ship again, hoping to meet Betty. It was some time, however, before he ran into her again, and when he did, their meeting was not a pleasant one. It was Rover who could be blamed for that. Mel saw her coming down a corridor, and almost automatically his face broke into a smile. Betty smiled in return, and when she had approached, asked, "How's the circus? And how are you doing with your tumbling?" "Both fine," replied Mel. And then his attention was attracted to Rover by a low rumbling sound. "What's wrong, boy?" he asked. "He's growling," said Betty. "Maybe there's somebody suspicious around," said Mel. "Rover can smell something wrong long before it happens. When a man tried to wreck our circus, he was the one who warned us." But Rover wasn't growling at anybody hiding in the corridor or staterooms. Suddenly he barked sharply, and there was no mistaking the person he distrusted. "Why, he's barking at me!" cried Betty. For a moment Mel didn't know what to reply. "Maybe he heard you play the piano and is warning you to stop it," he said at last, trying to be funny. But Betty didn't laugh. "II don't know what's got into him," Mel stammered. "He never acts that way. Quiet, Rover!" But Rover barked again, and then backed away from Betty as if to emphasize his distrust. Mel saw the girl flush. "Well, if your dog thinks I'm a suspicious character, I'd better stay away from you," she said. "Good-bye." And she left with her nose in the air. CHAPTER 6 MEL MEETS AN ENEMY MEL was so stunned that by the time he tried to call after her it was too late. He glared angrily at the dog, and said, "Now look what you've done. You've practically accused her of being a crook." It was the first time he had found Rover doing anything that displeased him. But the dog didn't seem to be ashamed of his behavior. Mel shook his head, and said, "The idea of your thinking Betty is a suspicious character. Maybe I've been giving you too much credit for being smart. You're pretty dumb after all, if you can make a mistake like that." Later on, however, when he told Bolam and Hakin what had happened, the two men didn't share his feelings. The strong man said thoughtfully, "Rover's no ordinary dog. If he's suspicious, there's cause for suspicion." "But, Bolam, what can be wrong with her? She's just an ordinary girl—I mean, she isn't ordinary-looking, but she wouldn't try to hurt us in any way. I like her a lot." "I remember some of the women I liked," said Bolam. "You can't go by that." "I still say she's all right," insisted Mel. "And that crazy dog has got it into his head that there's something wrong with her." "Our Clever Canine is far from a condition of insanity," said Hakin. "And he does not merely suspect something is wrong, he knows. Do you not, O Wise Beast?" The dog seemed to nod. "I don't believe it," said Mel stubbornly. "Maybe Rover can't stand the low gravity. Maybe he's suffering from a kind of space madness." "Don't talk nonsense," said Bolam. He paused reflectively. "The dog's been wandering through the ship with you. Does he ever leave you to go off by himself?" "Now and then," said Mel. "He doesn't bother any one. The passengers are getting to know him, and nobody complains about his being around." "He must have learned something during one of those trips," said Bolam firmly. "A great pity," said Hakin, "that his many gifts do not include the power of human speech. What secrets do you preserve in your brute bosom, O Friend of Man? Reveal them to us and receive our eternal gratitude." Rover naturally did not reply to this kind offer. But he continued to look as if he knew something. "The passage of time will reveal all," declared Hakin. "Never mind the passage of time," said Bolam. "Mel, you haven't seen any sign of anybody you know on this ship, have you? No familiar faces, no one whose mannerisms you recognize?" "Not a sign," insisted Mel. "Nothing to make you think that some one you are acquainted with might be on board? I'm worried about what you told us, about somebody trying to take your life. I think we have no right to forget about that." "Nobody's tried to hurt me in any way. And I'm sure that Betty wouldn't have anything to do with such a scheme." "Don't be too sure of anything," Bolam warned him. "There's plenty you have yet to learn. Better to hurt that girl's feelings than to take reckless chances. You keep Rover close to you wherever you go. And when he's suspicious, you be suspicious too." "Not of Betty," insisted Mel. Hakin sighed. "O Stupid One," he intoned, "My Mighty Friend has uttered words of wisdom. For thine own sake, give heed." "Another thing," said Bolam. "We sent that radiogram to John Armstrong more than a week ago. So far you've had no reply, have you?" "No," admitted Mel. "There's something wrong there." "Mr. Armstrong was always very absent-minded," said Mel defensively. "He's that kind of inventor. Besides, maybe he isn't at home. Maybe he's traveling." "That's possible," agreed Bolam. "Let us hope that we hear from him later." But the days passed, and they didn't hear. In his wanderings around the ship, Mel encountered Betty once or twice, but she always turned away before he could approach her, and just to make sure that she didn't become too friendly, Rover growled at her. A feeling of coolness began to grow between Mel and the dog. All the pleasure he had felt in the trip was now gone. And he blamed Rover for it. He began to count the days before the trip would end. There was more than a month and a half yet to go. Space ship schedules between Earth and Mars, he learned, varied greatly. When Earth and Mars were not far apart in their orbits, the fastest ships made the trip in about a week. They continued accelerating after the take-off until almost the mid-point of the journey, then began to decelerate, so as not to burst too rapidly into the thin atmosphere of Mars. By this method, the average speed was raised to a maximum, but both acceleration and deceleration used up atomic fuel, and the total fuel consumption was terrifically high. That was why only an occasional ship carrying important government officials or businessmen made the journey so rapidly. The average passenger vessel continued to accelerate at a low rate for a few hours, as their own ship had done, and then began to decelerate a few hours before reaching its destination. If it tried to go too fast, too much fuel would be consumed. If it went too slow, not only would too much time be wasted, but too much food would have to be carried for the passengers. Only the large freighters, with enormously high cargo-carrying capacity and small crews, ever tried to get by on a near-minimum of fuel, crawling along on the edges of the space lanes at just high enough velocity to carry them from the orbit of one planet to the next. Despite his misunderstanding with Rover, the dog continued to accompany him everywhere. Mel would have wanted to go through the ship alone, but Bolam and Hakin refused to let him. Whatever he thought about Rover, the dog was still a protection against threatened danger. One day, however, he felt that he was just about fed up. He had seen Betty the day before, and she had turned aside, as she usually did, when she saw Rover at his heels. "Today I go into the ship alone," announced Mel. "You are weary of Canine Company?" asked Hakin blandly. "And how!" "Perhaps today we shall permit Rover to remain behind. I shall accompany you through the ship instead. Perhaps I shall have the privilege, O Befuddled One, of viewing through my own dazzled eyes this paragon of feminine beauty who has bewitched you." "She hasn't bewitched me or anything like that," said Mel. "I don't bewitch easy. But she's a nice girl, and Rover's all wet about her being dangerous. And I'll be glad if you come with me. You'll have a chance to see her for yourself and know that he's wrong." Hakin nodded. "Very well, my Unbewitched and Unbefuddled One. I shall accompany you, and in order that I may not attract the Fair One's attention to myself, and induce her to forget you, I shall not assume too handsome an appearance. I shall shrink myself to a mere six feet, and allow my face to assume the stupid expression of the average sightseeing passenger." For the first time, therefore, Mel began to go through the ship unaccompanied by Rover. He and Hakin headed for the corridor where he had previously seen Betty. Here he hoped to meet her again. But there was no sign of her, and Mel headed past the cabin where he had heard the tinkling of the old piano. To his great joy, he heard the same sounds again. "That must be Betty," he said. "I think it's the same composition." Hakin listened carefully. "Excellent," he commented. "Most excellent. My faithful ears tell me that the Beautiful and Bewitching One is no musician. You are safe from her music. It cannot possibly weave a spell about you." "I've heard worse players," said Mel. "And I'm going to tell her that, too." He knocked at the cabin door, and thought he heard a voice say faintly, "Come in." He opened the door, and entered, followed by Hakin. A small girl sat at the piano keyboard. Without turning around, she asked eagerly, "Hey, Mom, is my half-hour up yet?" Hakin laughed, and Mel looked at him in disgust. The girl swirled around and demanded, "Hey, who are you people?" Mel said, "We're looking for an octopus who can play with eight hands. Your half hour won't be up till tomorrow. You keep practicing." Then they got out and he closed the door behind them. "You forgot to tell the Pretty One that she played well," Hakin reminded him. "Never mind that. We're going to keep looking for Betty until we find her." As it happened, they did not have to look much further. They met Betty coming around the next bend in the corridor, and although at first she started to turn away again, Mel ran after her and caught up with her. "Look, Betty," he said. "I want to talk to you. And to apologize for the way that dopey dog of mine has been acting. I haven't got him with me today, so we can talk." "I'm a suspicious character, and we've got nothing to say to each other," said Betty. "Aren't you afraid of danger when you're with me?" "Oh, don't be childish." Hakin had come up and was gazing gravely at the girl. Mel said, "Betty, I want to introduce my friend, Mr. Hakin. Hakin, this is Betty Major." Hakin said gravely: "How do you do, Miss—Miss Major." And then he turned to Mel and said, "Your dog was correct. You were fooled. But he was not." Mel felt his face turning red. "What do you mean, Hakin?" "He was correct in being suspicious, My Too Trusting Friend. Perhaps this young lady does not remember me, but I remember her. I met her first when she was a small child." Betty said defiantly, "I—I suppose you know my real name. Is that why you're suspicious of me?" "Is that not a good reason, O Indignant One? Why did you not use your own name? It was your uncle's idea to go under the name of Major, was it not?" "Yes, he's making a business trip. And he didn't want to be annoyed by people who wanted his autograph—and—and things like that." "I assure you," said Hakin, "that I shall not ask Your Esteemed Relative to acquire writer's cramp by inscribing his autograph. That is, if I have the misfortune to encounter The Crooked One." "You can't talk like that about my uncle!" cried Betty. "I can say much worse about him, O Fair One. But there are things I prefer to say to his face. And I think," added Hakin, "that Fortune is now presenting me with my opportunity." Betty's uncle was coming down the corridor, another Martian cigar clenched between his teeth. He stopped when he saw Mel and Hakin, and stared closely, and with special care, at the latter. "You do not remember me?" said Hakin politely. "Let me recall, O Hirer of Thieves and Murderers, the nature of our last encounter. I began by acting thus." And to Mel's astonishment, he stretched a long arm across to pluck the cigar from the startled man's mouth. "Hakin!" cried Betty's uncle. "Correct," said Hakin. "And how is the conniving Mr. Gard Closker today?" CHAPTER 7 WELCOME TO MARS! CONNIVING or not, Mr. Gard Closker was boiling with fury. His hand dropped to his belt, but Hakin's own hand covered his, and Hakin said quietly, "Let me remind you that this too happened before. And the results were unfortunate for you. Do not try to pull a gun, Mr. Closker. Do not invite history to repeat itself in so unpleasant a fashion for you." The man hesitated sullenly, then let his hand relax, and Hakin took his own hand away. As Bolam had once said, Closker didn't easily lose his temper. And by this time he had recovered from his initial surprise. He growled, "You can't call me a hirer of thieves and murderers and get away with it." "The truth is painful to you, O Sensitive Soul?" inquired Hakin politely. Closker had regained thorough control of himself. He said, almost calmly, "It isn't true." "Of course it isn't true," asserted Betty hotly. "Let me then recite the facts, O Insulted One," said Hakin. "Enemies have released our animals and tried to create panic on the ship. One of these enemies has broken into our quarters and tried to shoot this lad here." Both men looked at Mel, who nodded, and said, "That's right." Betty said, "But Uncle Gard—" "Do not interrupt," ordered Hakin. "After capture, this man confessed that he was hired by you, O Impresario of Three-Ring Disaster. And now I find you here under an assumed name. Are we to suppose that all this is but a matter of coincidence?" While he was talking, Closker had become quite calm, almost good-naturedly so. He pulled another cigar from his pocket and lit it. Then he said, "Part of it is coincidence. Do you think, Hakin, that I'd deliberately take passage on a ship where I'd expect you to run into trouble? If I had hired anybody to harm you, the one thing I'd be sure to do is avoid your presence like the plague. When there's real dirty work afoot, I like to be at least a couple of million miles away." "That much, I grant you, is in character, O Instigator of Difficulties for Others." "You know something else that's in character about me too. I don't like to do things illegally." Hakin smiled. He and Closker were so busy being good-natured, thought Mel, that if a stranger had come along he would have thought they were having a nice friendly chat. "We all do things we dislike to do," said Hakin. "Is it not so, O Slippery One?" "Not if they're illegal. Mind you, I don't have much use for what some people call 'ethics.' If the law says that a thing is allowed, I don't worry about whether it's 'nice' or not. I have to do it, I just do it, and the nice-nellies can think what they please. I have to know what my competitors are doing, and I send men to look them over and report back to me. But that, as you know, is perfectly legal." Mel noticed that Betty was biting her lips. "No matter what you call it, Uncle Gard, that's spying," she said. "I'm against it." Closker turned coldly to her. "I didn't ask your opinion, Betty. You're only a child, and you don't know business methods. I'm handling this." Then he faced Hakin again. "I don't know whether the men you speak of were agents of mine or not." "We have the word of one of them that they were. And are." Closker said calmly, "But you yourself, Hakin, have called them thieves and murderers. My own opinion is that they are fools as well, to undertake such stupid things—and to allow themselves to be caught. Do you intend to take the word of such men against me?" "Seeing that they have attempted theft and murder on your orders, my answer must be in the affirmative, O Twister of Words." "You argue in a circle, Hakin. I say this again: I do nothing illegal, and I do not order my men to do anything illegal. I can't afford to take a chance being caught breaking the law. If they have done things they shouldn't, then it was on their own, in a foolish and criminal belief that any misfortune they might arrange for you would please me." "Such a belief would indeed be criminal. But would you call it foolish as well, O My Generous Well-Wisher?" asked Hakin softly. "Yes, because as I'm trying to get it through your head, I don't want to tangle with the law. I'd much rather have it on my side. If these men say I ordered them to harm you, they're lying. Turn them over to the authorities, and I'll see to it that they're prosecuted and sent to jail." He turned again to his niece. "I think we've finished here, Betty. Come along." Betty hesitated, then went with him without looking back. Her manner was dejected, and she walked mechanically, as if she had suffered a shock. After a long silence, Mel said, "He certainly is a slippery one, Hakin." "Slippery and shrewd, O Undeceived One. Perhaps he is telling the truth," added Hakin thoughtfully. "But not the entire truth. That is not in him. Perhaps he only told his men to spy. But he may have implied to them that if misfortune should befall our circus, he would be pleased with them, and be liberal with his rewards." "Isn't there any way we can find out?" "No, there he is on firm ground. His hirelings are criminals, and few would take their word against the word of a man like Gard Closker. Unless there is some record of his conversation with them, he is safe. And a man like The Slippery One does not allow such records to be made." Mel said, "Rover seemed to know. I don't know how he did it, but somehow he learned who Closker was. That's why he warned me against Betty." "Yes, as you already realize, Rover is a highly intelligent canine," agreed Hakin. "All the same, I don't think that Betty had anything to do with her uncle's crookedness. She was even more shocked about it than we were. Rover wasn't really warning me against her. He was just telling me to beware of her uncle." "It is a pity, O Loyal One, that the dog cannot speak, and tell you what he really meant. Remember only that she is inexperienced and easily deceived by one she has learned to trust. Recall how she aided him in his deception about his name." Later, when they got back to the circus quarters, Mel found the dog waiting for them just inside the door. He took Rover's head between his hands. "You were smart, Rover, you weren't fooled by them, and you knew what you were doing all the time," he said. "You did the right thing 1, warning me. But it's her uncle you were wary of, not Bet! herself. Isn't that right?" Rover gazed back at him steadily. Then his head moved I slightly between Mel's hands. "You're saying, 'yes,' aren't you, boy?" Mel wasn't exactly what Rover was indicating, and he hurried to interpret the dog's gesture the way he wanted to. "She wouldn't play us any dirty tricks. I knew it the first time I looked at her. She's a nice kid." Rover didn't contradict him, and Mel remained happy his belief. Just how intelligent Rover was, Mel learned on one the days that followed. Accompanied by the dog, Mel had wandered into the ship's lounge, where several passengers were relaxing. At one table, two men and two women were playing with magnetized cards. Nearby, in easy chairs, others were chatting casually. In one corner a boy of seven and girl about the same age were looking at what Mel at first thought was a toy. When the two children saw Rover, their faces lighted up. "That's a nice dog," said the boy. "He's handsome," said the girl. She asked Mel, "May I pat him? Will he bite?" "He doesn't bite," said Mel, and the girl stroked Rover's head. The dog paid her hardly any attention. He was staring at the thing Mel had thought was a toy. On a huge table, tiny glowing spheres were slowly revolving in what appeared to be great circles. Suddenly, Rover stood up at the table, pointed with his right forepaw, and barked sharply. The children shied away from him. But Mel said, "Don't be afraid. He just wants to tell me something." And he asked, with growing excitement, "Do you know what that is, Rover?" The dog's great head nodded. "Point to the place we came from," said Mel eagerly. As Mel had hoped, and hardly dared believe would happen, the dog's paw pointed to the little green sphere that represented Earth in this model of the Solar System. "Now point to the planet we're going to," said Mel. Rover unerringly indicated the still smaller red sphere. "And where are we now?" The paw moved in the direction of the bar of light which represented the ship. Mel swallowed hard and gazed at the dog. "So you knew what this ship was all the time. You knew where it was going. You weren't hiding from a dog catcher. You stowed away because you wanted to travel in space, to see Mars and the other planets yourself. Is that it?" The dog nodded. "Wait till I tell Bolam and Hakin!" exclaimed Mel. "They won't believe it!" But Bolam and Hakin could believe anything that reflected credit upon Space Rover, and their lack of surprise almost disappointed Mel. "I'll have to tell Betty," he thought. "She'll insist on seeing Rover with the Solar System model herself." Then he suddenly remembered that he wasn't doing much talking to Betty these days. And Betty certainly wasn't talking to him. He didn't see her again in the ship's corridors, nor did he catch sight of her uncle. Evidently both of them were avoiding contact with the rival circus. He was disappointed also that during the rest of his trip he heard no word from John Armstrong in reply to his radiogram. He found it hard to believe that the man who had been his father's partner would have no interest at all in what happened to his partner's son. Armstrong must be away from home, he thought. He must be still unaware that Mel was speeding toward Mars. Meanwhile, Mel continued his practice in acrobatics, starting the learning of a new trick every time he felt he had mastered an old one. In the low artificial gravity of the ship, the danger of accidents while practicing was small, and he went ahead with confidence. But he could not help wondering what would happen if he tried to do what he had learned in a gravitational field as strong as Earth's, for instance. From time to time, Bolam and Hakin gave him lessons in animal training, and he studied the simpler books on interplanetary zoology that were to be found in the ship's library. After a while he began to have a better idea of the types of animals that were found on Mars and Venus, as well as Earth. Zoology books, however, were not written from a circus point of view, and it required considerable information from Bolam and Hakin to round out the picture of those animals that were useful to them. And then, one day when Mars had become a large disk in the forward viewplates, almost as large as the moon when seen from Earth, and he could just make out with the naked eye the various great deserts and mountain ranges, he found the floor tilting slightly under his feet. It took him a few seconds to realize what that meant. There was a new gravitational force on the ship, in addition to the spin gravity. This time it was directed forward, toward Mars. But it was not the gravity due to the mass of the planet. It was the result of a decelerating force applied by forward jets of the ship itself. They were gradually slowing up, getting ready to make the landing. The next few hours passed in feverish preparations for disembarking on Mars. Bolam and Hakin checked on the probable landing time and sent half a dozen radiograms to their men, so that the circus property might be taken off the ship as soon as possible. Mel helped them whenever he could, but it turned out that there was less to do than he had thought. The last hour passed so slowly that he began to think they would never arrive, that they would be forever stuck in space. Gradually, however, the spin gravity disappeared, and the gravity of the planet itself was added to that of deceleration. Slightly before this stage, all passengers were ordered to strap themselves in seats in their staterooms. The direction of up and down slowly shifted, as their own direction changed, and different forces took hold of the ship, and its contents. From a head-on course toward the red planet they veered to a tangential path, curving about more and more, until finally t hey hit the extremely thin atmosphere at only a slight angle. They descended in a sharp spiral, and Mel, who at the time was looking through a viewplate in the side of the ship, caught a glimpse of one of the two tiny Martian moons, he didn't know which, speeding in its own rapid journey about the mother planet. As they turned, he caught sight, far below, of a gleaming dome, white against the Martian surface, like a blister on the desert's face. Inside the dome was Marsopolis. And then at last they were down, with the ship tilted again under him, and Mel knew that they had landed. Bolam and Hakin laughed at his impatience to get out and set foot on the new planet. "What did you expect?" rumbled Bolam. "That you'd be able to walk right out?" "I thought we'd get space suits. Or at least helmets." "We don't wear space suits or helmets unless we can't help it," said Bolam. "What the crew is doing now is connecting the ship's air lock with the Blister air lock. That'll take another few minutes, but actually it's faster and more convenient than using space suits. Those things are a nuisance to put on and take off." "The best thing would be to land inside a Blister," said Mel. "This way is a waste of time." "Maybe some day we'll do as you suggest," replied Bolam. "But not yet." "Not yet," agreed Hakin. "Restrain thy steeds, O Impatient One. There are but a few moments more to endure. Mars will wait." Actually, it was no more than an additional ten minutes before the passengers began to leave the ship. Mel and Rover accompanied Hakin with the first group, to locate the circus crew, while Bolam remained behind on guard. Through the ship's air lock, they entered a narrow tunnel which had flexible metal connections at each end. The total length of the tunnel was no more than a hundred and fifty feet. After passing through it, they entered the Blister air lock, and then the Blister itself. The Blister, as Mel knew, was one of about a score domes scattered over the surface of Mars. These covered sometimes a city and its suburbs, sometimes a group of villages. The surface was a double layer, each layer composed a transparent metal alloy, containing more than fifty percent iron. This allowed the sun's visible light to enter, along will, most of the infra-red. It cut out only some of the more harmful ultra-violet rays, and the cosmic rays. At the same time the double shell insulated the colony within from the cold atmosphere of Mars, and prevented the air inside from escaping and being dispersed over the entire surface of the planet. Ordinary Martian air was too thin to be breathable. The air inside the Blister was also thin by Earth standards, but it would support human and other terrestrial life. The partial pressure of oxygen was about fifteen percent of an atmosphere, and the total pressure no more than a quarter of an atmosphere, recalculated to Earth standards. (The actual pressures, Mel knew, were less; the low Martian gravity, which affected so many things, made for a lower weight of air, and hence a decrease in pressure compared to the effect the same mass of air would have on Earth.) Mars had very little nitrogen, at least on the surface, and the tenth of an atmosphere of inert gases that slightly diluted the oxygen was made up mostly of helium and argon, derived from native Martian ores. Mel's lungs felt a little strange at first, as they breathed this unusual mixture, but there was enough oxygen to supply his body's needs, and gradually he got used to it. As a matter of fact, as Hakin pointed out, he had been getting used to it during the last few hours on the ship. "Before landing, O Impatient One," said the rubber man, "the composition of the air being circulated is changed. The percentage of oxygen is raised slightly, while the content of inert gases is greatly diminished. Otherwise there might be a sharp decrease of total pressure on entering the Blister, and this might prove harmful." "I didn't notice any change." "You probably did, but very likely ascribed it to the change in gravity, My Negligent Friend," said Hakin. Most likely he was right, thought Mel. But at this moment, a couple of men came up and greeted Hakin, and the latter gave them directions to go into the ship and meet Bolam. Mel looked about him. The Blister was about a quarter of a mile high, and about ten miles by three in length and width. It was composed of great plates joined without seams, supported here and there by strong towers. Within the transparent double skin, all the essential activity of the colony went on. Mel saw a few hundred yards before him several rows of buildings, not too close together, and beyond them a long empty stretch before the next buildings began. The Blister, small as it might be compared to the total surface of Mars, had not yet been made uncomfortable by crowding. At Mel's side, Rover suddenly raised his head and sniffed, and Mel's own gaze followed the direction where the dog's interest appeared to lie. What he saw in the distance seemed at first to be some huge shiny monster buzzing and crawling over the ground. Then he saw that it was a kind of tractor, with a single man seated on top. The ground underneath them was a dull dark gray, with a slightly reddish cast. It felt yielding, and yet strangely sharp, like fine gravel spread over grass. The gray stretched in every direction away from them to the nearer edge of the Blister. But where the great tractor had passed, the ground became a dark brown. Hakin had sent the two men into the ship, and was now waiting for other members of the circus crew. Mel asked, "What's that tractor doing?" "It collects the iron, O Innocent One," said Hakin, rather briefly, compared to his usual manner. "The iron?" "Left by the ferriphilic bacteria and plants." "I don't get that," said Mel. "Ferriphilic—?" "The word, O Lad Ignorant of Science, means 'iron-loving,' and in particular, 'more-oxidized-state-of-iron-loving', explained Hakin. "The red color of most of Mars is due the iron rust which is scattered over its surface. Iron rust, you know, is an oxide of iron. These bacteria, and the same plants on whose roots they collect, together are able to draw the iron, which they use in their metabolism. At same time, the oxygen is set free, increasing the oxygen content of the air." "So that's where the oxygen comes from!" exclaimed Mel. "Most certainly, O Perceptive One. Did you think it we imported from Earth? Later on, the plants excrete the iron in metallic form. If allowed to remain, it would rust again, withdrawing the oxygen from the air once more, and go through the cycle repeatedly. This is prevented by gathering the iron for use in building." "That's a good idea," said Mel. "They get a double use out of the rust." "Thanks to the Microscopic Ones," said Hakin. "But let us forget that for now. I see the rest of our men approaching. I shall take them into the ship, and we shall begin to unload. Come too, and bring the dog." Mel was glad to be of help. There was a lot of lifting and dragging to do, although within the ship itself a conveyer belt brought the cages close to the air lock quickly and easily. From the ship's air lock to the tunnel, however, it wasn't so easy. Everything had to be moved by human muscles, although in the light gravity of Mars, little more than a third that of Earth, this wasn't as great a task as it at first seemed. They had trouble with only two of the animals—the tiger, and the huge pink-furred beast which had come charging down the corridors when the cage doors had been opened. The tiger was the lighter of the two, but gave more trouble. Bolam would have found it easy enough to drag the cage along if the beast hadn't been excited by what was happening and paced back and forth uneasily, shifting its weight round and making it difficult for Bolam to know where to apply his strength. There was some danger too, Mel felt, that the animal, in its excitement, would try to attack him through the slits in the cage. But the animal's experience with the training robot had conditioned it against such an attempt, and finally, Bolam was able to grunt and tug the cage down the tunnel and through the Blister airlock. The pink beast's cage followed more slowly, and with less excitement. Finally, the circus equipment from the ship was inside the Blister, near a cluster of what looked like small metalloid huts. "Where do we take it now?" asked Mel. "No place," replied Bolam. "We have a permit to put on a show right here." "Here?" Mel looked around him. "Right out in the open?" "Why not? There's never any change of weather in the Blister. No rain, no extreme heat, no unusual cold. The only reason for living indoors here is for the sake of privacy. That, by the way, is the purpose of those huts. Some are dressing rooms, others contain additional equipment." "Do you not see, O Slow-Witted One," said Hakin, "that this is the most convenient place? When we are through with our exhibition here, we remove our property with little trouble through the airlock to a sealed jet ship, and then proceed to the next Blister for another series of performances." They were right, as Mel quickly realized. He had always thought of the circus in terms of the stories he had read about Earth. There were tents, and side shows, and all sorts of acts that would be out of place here. Because of the difficulty of transportation, every act, every animal, must be of a kind to hold an audience's interest. There was no need for side shows, nor was there room for the chiselers and grafters who sometimes followed such shows around on Earth. But as Bolam had told him when they first met, the equipment and animals on the space ship were but a small part of the circus as a whole. Soon he would see the rest of it. "When does the show start?" he asked. "Tonight, shortly after the sun sets. That will be at 2:on P.M., Greenwich Earth Time." It was odd, thought Mel, to find them using Earth time here on Mars, where the slightly slower rotation of the planet gave a day more than a half hour longer than the one he was accustomed to. But there had to be some interplanetary time standard. The ship too, where there was no sunrise or sunset only the continual beating of the sun's glaring light on the metal hull, had been run on Greenwich time, and they had gone to sleep and got up again on the same twenty-four hour schedule they would have used on Earth. The men were setting to work now, and Mel pitched in, helping to set up the rows of seats. There was only a single ring, for it was felt that every spectator ought to see every act without having his attention distracted by too many other things going on at the same time. The total number accommodated at any one performance would be little more than four thousand. In view of the fact, however, that circuses were rare here on Mars, it was certain that sooner or later almost every one in the Blister who could spare the time would come to see a performance, and some people would come many times. They had finished putting up about half the seats, when a boy a couple of years younger than himself, in an Interradio uniform, came over to them, yelling, "Call for Mr. Melvin Oliver. Call for Mr. Melvin Oliver." "That's me!" cried Mel in excitement. "What is it?" "You Melvin Oliver? I thought it was a man, not a kid." "Cut out the wise cracks, half-pint," growled Mel. "Deliver your message." "Long-distance vision call at 10:00. Over in the Communications Building." "What time is it now?" demanded Mel. "Nine-forty. You're a greenhorn on Mars, aren't you? I can tell by your clothes." "Never mind my clothes," said Mel. This messenger boy was so busy minding everybody's business but his own that he was a pain in the neck. "How long does it take to get to this place?" "About five minutes. A dopey guy like you it'll take ten minutes. If you move fast, that is, and don't stand around gawking, like most of you tenderfeet." "I'd better take no chances," said Mel, "and hurry right over there. And a good thing for you, Flash, or I'd take time out to teach you a little politeness." "Yeah? I don't waste time being polite to kids." "Button your lip, Loud-Mouth," said Mel, "or I'll put you in a cage with a few more of our animals." The messenger boy brushed a speck of dirt from his uniform. "Hurry up, chum, you got a call coming to you. But before you go, better sign this slip." Mel took the pencil that was offered him and rapidly scrawled his name. "Who's the call from?" "Can't you read? It says here from John Armstrong." "At last!" thought Mel, and he started to hurry off. "Hey!" yelled the messenger boy. "Don't I get a tip?" "Sure," said Mel. "Be polite to everybody, and you'll get along fine. That's the best tip I can give you." Then he hurried off down the line of buildings the messenger boy had pointed out, with Rover walking alongside him. CHAPTER 8 KILLERS IN THE CIRCUS THERE wasn't as much time as the messenger boy had said there would be. Mel didn't waste any time gawking, but it was five minutes before the hour when he reached the building, and it took a couple of minutes before the girl in charge of the change booths could pay attention to him. Finally she motioned for him to go into booth number eleven. "Wait for the red light over the screen to flash," she said. Mel waited impatiently. The screen in front of him lit up, but remained blank. Finally, the red light over the screen flashed, and Mel said eagerly, "Hello, hello. Mr. Armstrong?" An image formed on the screen—the image of an old man wearing glasses, his face thin and lined, his hair visibly gray even on the screen. Mel recognized the face as vaguely familiar. The sight of it brought back memories of his mother and father, and for a moment Mel felt a lump in his throat. Then he forced himself to think of the man he saw on the screen. How many years since he had last seen John Armstrong? About eight or so. He hadn't realized that a man could age so fast. The old man said, "So you are Melvin. Dear me, I've often wondered where you were. How are you, Melvin?" "I'm fine, thanks, Mr. Armstrong. I've wanted to get in touch with you for a long time. But it took me a couple of years to learn you were on Mars. When I finally did locate you, I sent you a radiogram. That was weeks ago." "Yes, I know. But I gave orders to my secretary, Mr. Gardner, that I was not to be disturbed by such things. I was doing an important piece of research, you know. I finished up recently, and he let me have your message. I knew when the ship was scheduled to land, and decided to call you, care of the circus." "Well, I'm glad you finally decided to do something about it, Mr. Armstrong. What I wanted to talk about is kind of important, and I was upset because you didn't answer me. Somebody's trying to kill me." "What did you say? I'm afraid my old ears don't hear any too well. Someone is trying to kill you?" "That's right, Mr. Armstrong. I don't know why, and I thought you might be able to help me figure out a reason." "Dear me, I am a peaceable man, and I abhor violence. I know no reason why any one should wish to kill any one else. Do you, Mr. Gardner?" He turned to some one out of range of the vision tube at the other end. Mel heard a murmured voice, "I have no idea, Mr. Armstrong." "You hear that, Melvin? Mr. Gardner has no idea either. I think that what you say is fantastic. You must be mistaken." "I'm not, Mr. Armstrong. Fantastic or not, what I told you is true. Maybe if we knew something about the property my father left, we could figure out a reason together." "My dear boy, I shall always be glad to help a son of Thomas Oliver, whom I recall as the finest friend a man ever had. But when you speak of a reason to kill you—" He half turned away from the screen, and for a moment Mel had the idea that he had forgotten he was talking to someone. Mel heard a vague murmur, as if Mr. Gardner, at the side, was reminding him. "Whenever you come this way, Melvin, be sure to drop in to see me. I live in Blister Number Seven." "Thank you, sir." Mel didn't bother to tell him that he already had the address, or else he wouldn't have been able to send the radiogram. "We'll probably give a show there later this month." "We? Are you taking an active part in the circus?" "I'm part of one act. And I help around generally." "I never expected such a thing of Thomas Oliver's son. By the way, Melvin—" "Yes, sir?" "Even with these spectacles, which I find much superior to the new plastic lenses, my old eyes do not see as clearly as they should. I am under the impression that you have a dog alongside you." "It is a dog, Mr. Armstrong. His name is Rover. He's a very nice dog." "I dislike dogs. I dislike them intensely. When you come to see me, Melvin, please leave the dog behind." "But Mr. Armstrong—" "Perhaps it is because I am allergic to dog-hairs. They make me sneeze and feel generally uncomfortable. You will have to be vacuum-cleaned before I can speak to you face to face. And you will leave the dog behind. Is that clear, Melvin?" In his resentment, Mel didn't trust himself to speak. He nodded. "Very well. Good-bye, my boy." When Mel turned away from the booth and started back to the circus and his friends, he had a feeling of disappointment. It wasn't simply because old John Armstrong didn't like Rover, whom Mel had reason to consider more loyal than most human friends. It was because the old man seemed so absent-minded, so out of this world. He was even worse than Mel remembered him. He had such trouble getting into his head an idea of a kind he wasn't used to. He wouldn't be much help, feared Mel, in trying to find whoever it was that had made an effort to get rid of him. And as for leaving Rover behind—"That's one thing I won't do," he muttered to himself. Rover showed his agreement by uttering a low growl. Mel walked slowly back toward the site where the circus was preparing for the performance. On the way, he saw posters announcing the show. By the time he returned, the seats had been set up in a great circle, and two metal frameworks had been created for the trapezes and other aerial apparatus. A great metal screen shielded the circus itself from curious non-paying onlookers on the outside. Now the circus crew was putting in order the dressing rooms that would be needed by the performers. Mel plunged in and helped. There was plenty of work to do. This circus had a small crew, compared to the crews of the old terrestrial shows, and every one who belonged here was expected to keep busy whenever there was something to be done. It was not until just before performance time that most of the work was finished. And even through the performance itself, Mel knew, some of the men would keep on working. A ticket booth had been set up, and the early arrivals were already coming in, looking around for the best seats. One feature this circus did have like its old-time ancestors, and that was the vending of things to eat and drink. Mel would have liked to go up and down the aisles, selling Martian bounce-corn, and floating taffy, and iron-flower soda, and all the rest of the delicacies with which the kids and their parents liked to ruin their stomachs, but Hakin said "Restrain your ambition, O Eager One. Have you forgotten that you are a performer in one of the early acts?" "I thought I'd go on in the second half of the show." "You are but a novice, O Stage-Struck One, or else you would know what is most suitable for you. While the spectators are fresh, anything will please them. They will laugh and applaud at the sight of you and your dog and your kabror tumbling together. But once their appetites are somewhat jaded, they will be aroused to enthusiasm by only the best, the most sensational of acts." "I thought my act was pretty good," said Mel. "It is not what you think that counts, but what the audience thinks, O Uncured Ham. Go to your dressing room and begin to limber up. You make your appearance soon." Mel was disappointed. After the way Hakin and Bolani had spoken about his work before, he had almost convinced himself that he was one of the stars of the show, and now he found out that his act served only to warm up the audience, to put it in a good humor for the more sensational acts that were to follow. "Hakin 's wrong," he told himself. "We're a much better act than he thinks we are. Wait till he sees how much applause we get." Rover followed him to his dressing room, where the kabror waited patiently in its cage. Rover and the three-legged animal didn't need limbering up, and they both watched with intelligently interested eyes as Mel did a triple somersault high in the air. "Wait till the audience sees that," he muttered smugly to himself. He was so busy warming up and thinking of the triumph he would have that he missed the beginning of the actual performance. A master of ceremonies came out, dressed in the traditional top hat, boots, riding trousers, and tails—this was one of the things that hadn't changed much. After intoning a short speech of greeting, he cracked a whip. The whip broke into half a dozen pieces, and while the audience gasped, each of the pieces put out two pairs of wings and flew away. The "whip" was nothing more than a rare Venusian bird-colony. Then the first act came on. Mel peeked out through the door of his dressing room to see what looked like a quartet of clowns. Two of them were short and squat, and beneath these latter clown costumes he thought he recognized Bolam and Hakin, the rubber man in his contracted form. At least Hakin wasn't hesitant about taking his own advice and going on early. Bolam and Hakin had a comic argument in pantomime, ending in a fight when Hakin threw himself against his enormously wide partner and bounced off as from a brick wall. The other two clowns joined in, supporting Hakin. The argument grew more violent, and Bolam tried to grab his partner. The first time he missed, succeeding only in pulling Hakin's pants off. The audience laughed, but Bolam tried again, and the second time he got a good grip. The other clowns came to Hakin's assistance and tried to pull him away. But the strong man had a good grip of Hakin's feet, and when the others realized this, each of them grabbed an arm and everybody pulled, while poor Hakin in the middle pantomimed great distress. As everybody tugged at him, Hakin stretched and stretched. When he reached his full length, his arms and legs were each at least four and a half feet long. The audience was by this time screaming in excitement. Suddenly the two men holding his arms let go, and Hakin bounced at his partner like a rubber band that had been stretched and let go. Bolam, still holding on to Hakin's feet, was knocked down and began to roll away. Hakin stretched and contracted again and again, each time knocking Bolam down. In this way they reached the exit from the arena in a series of pratfalls, with the audience howling at each one. Mel found it so funny that he forgot about his own act. The next moment, a group of girl bareback riders pranced into the arena on Martian zebras—handsome little beasts with six legs each and an even trotting gait. The girls didn't have to do much except look pretty, but that was all they were expected to do, and at this stage the audience didn't ask for anything more. Then a man came out to do a solo act on the trapeze, and as Mel watched, he began to get an idea of what Hakin meant. This fellow whirled around endlessly, leaped into the air and did somersaults before coming down again, jumped from one trapeze to another, which he caught with his teeth, and as Mel admitted, was terrific all around. The audience gave him round after round of applause. After a few such acts, no one would have much use for so tame a thing as a tumbling act like his own, even with a dog and kabror added. Hakin came over to him and said, "You display your talents in the second act after this one, O Nervous Novice. Prepare yourself." "Gosh, this fellow is wonderful," said Mel. "Ordinary," said Hakin. "Wait, O Impressed One, until you see the other trapeze acts." The trapeze artist was followed by more clowns. And then, before he knew it, it was Mel's turn. Mel didn't know why it was, but suddenly the whole world seemed to change. It was as if an earthquake had struck the planet and made a wreck of it. Neither his eyes nor his legs worked properly any more. The audience seemed to tremble in front of him, the lights to blur and blend into one vast dazzling light. He stumbled rather than walked into the arena, and his legs felt as if they would collapse under him. That, he thought, was really silly. Mars had low gravity, there was no reason for him to feel as if he didn't have the strength to hold his own weight up. But none the less, that was the way he felt. Some performers start worrying days before they go on, others are confident until almost the last minute. That was the way Mel was. He had been feeling so chipper—and now stage fright had struck without warning, just as he was about to go into his act. He felt that before those thousands of waiting spectators he wouldn't be able to move a muscle, that while they all stared at him and wondered what he was doing in a circus, he was just going to stand out there like a statue. But now the training he had gone through paid off. His muscles seemed to move themselves. He leaped, somersaulted, and landed on his feet without knowing how he did it. He could see the audience turn upside down, he could hear it as it broke into a roar of laughter at the kabror's funny expression, and cheered Rover's tumbling. But it felt as if everything was happening to some one else, not to him. He felt no closer to the scene than if he had been watching it on a television screen miles away. At last his act was over, and with Rover trotting alongside him and the kabror leaping gracefully ahead, he ran out of the arena. Once in his own dressing room, he recovered almost miraculously. He could still hear the audience applauding (actually it was applauding the next act, but it had been applauding in exactly the same way for him) and he was sure that he had been a hit. "We wowed them, didn't we, Rover?" he said proudly. "We showed them an act they won't forget in a hurry." Whether Rover agreed with him or not he never found out. The audience had suddenly hushed, and he peeped through the door to find out why. Bolam had come out, not as a clown this time, but as a strong man. Bolam's strength was far greater than that of any ordinary human being, and here on Mars everything weighed only a little more than a third of what it did on Earth. If there ever was a place for a strong man act, thought Mel, it was a planet like Mars. Bolam lifted a Martian zebra and its pretty rider into the air with one hand, he supported and turned a merry-go-round full of children on a platform placed on his chest, he knocked a genuine Martian building down with a blow of his fist, so that the plastic bricks fell in a great heap. He was so impressive in his strength that Mel, who a moment before had been sure that the audience would never forget his own act, forgot it himself. Then it was Hakin's turn, in an India rubber act, also solo. He stretched, and shot like a bullet up to the trapeze forty feet above the ground. He tied himself into a knot, rather into half a dozen knots, all of them recognizable to the children in the audience from the illustrations in the Martian Boy Scout Manual. He bounced like a rubber ball and he contorted himself into the shapes of half a dozen familiar animals. He didn't imitate any other human beings, though. The ability to do that was something he didn't want to publicize. The audience was eating it up. In addition to everything else, Hakin had a warm friendly personality which came across to all the children and their parents watching him. They would go out, thought Mel, and tell their friends how wonderful the show was. There would be a full house, performance after performance. From where he stood, his gaze glided over their rapt faces. Parents and kids, middle-aged men and women, grandfathers and grandmothers, kindergarten squirts and first-graders and second-graders and so on up to junior high school boys and girls in their teens, all were enjoying it. One fat man was laughing so hard that the Martian bounce-corn was popping from his open bag to the floor, just as if it were being bounced off the surface of a griddle. Near him a four year old was standing with mouth open, as if catching flies. It was a good thing for him that there were no flies on Mars. And not far from the four year old— Mel had a shock. But there could be no doubt about it, that was the bulky figure and the hard crafty face of Gard Closker, sitting there calmly and appraisingly, making his judgment of the rival circus with his ever-present cigar in his mouth. And next to him sat Betty, looking neat and pretty, as if she didn't have a crooked uncle in the world. What were these two doing here? The obvious answer would be that they had come to enjoy the performance. But Mel didn't believe that. Closker was undoubtedly here to see the kind of acts his rivals had collected, the size of the audience that had showed up. But was there something more? Was Closker up to one of his dirty tricks again, one of the kind he himself would consider not "ethical," but perfectly legal? From behind Mel there came a short angry growl. Mel turned quickly. Rover was crouched in an attitude of excitement, staring at the open entrance in the rear of the dressing room. Suddenly, he leaped across the room, but the door slammed in his face. The dog turned and dashed toward the kabror's cage. He was too late. A powerful odor swept out and hit Mel in the face. It must have hit the dog too. But Rover didn't flinch. He snapped up the piece of twisted frankfurter that some one had thrown in, and then ran for the door. "Wait a minute, Rover," said Mel. "If we take it away from him, he'll keep smelling up the place for hours. The only thing to do is give it to him and hope that he eats it fast." He pulled the piece of frankfurter from Rover's unresisting jaws, and holding his breath, tossed it right into the cage. Then he got out and slammed the front door shut. They hadn't expected trouble with the kabror, and there was no special air purifier ready. But it wouldn't take long to set one up, and if they worked fast, the beast's odor would be confined to a narrow space. If they worked fast, that was. If he could get to Hakin or Bolam, or even one of the circus crew— Outside the dressing room, Rover was running slightly ahead of him, and the dog's leap took Mel by surprise. Rover was launching his body at the man around the corner before Mel even realized that the man was there. The blast of the gun went off silently, shearing off the top of a wall. Smoke rose from the dog's singed fur. Then the man was down, his gun on the floor, with Rover on top of him, and the man's two desperate hands around the dog's thick throat, trying to keep the animal away. It is not easy to strangle a dog and make him release his grip, especially a dog as large and strong as a collie of the new breed. Moreover, this dog had been painfully singed, and knew that the usual rules about not hurting human beings didn't apply. Rover struggled to tear loose, and his jaws snapped on the man's arm, ripping the sleeve and tearing the flesh. The man cursed, and his own grip loosened. Another second, and Mel had reached him. The boy dived for the blast gun, just as a metal bullet sang past his ear. The first man was not alone. Before Mel could swing around with the blast gun he had grabbed, half a dozen more bullets were scattering around him. He felt a sting in his left arm, but no real pain. Not then. There was no time for pain. Rover had torn himself away from the man on the floor and was now whirling around to face this new enemy. But the dog's motions were not as rapid as usual, and the newcomer wasn't waiting for him. He was running around the next corner, past the dressing rooms. Mel had hardly got a good look at him, and he wouldn't be able to recognize him again. Perhaps Rover— Rover was panting harder than Mel had ever heard him pant before. He stood there looking after the man who had run away, but he made no move to follow. Instead, he collapsed onto the ground. It was not until that moment that Mel noticed the broad streak of red, staining the dog's fur and running down his side to the floor. CHAPTER 9 ROVER TAKES A REST THE man with whom Rover had been struggling lay even more quietly than the dog, his eyes staring at the ceiling. Mel had never seen violent death before, but he had an idea that this man was dead. A circus crewman came running, with Hakin in clown costume not far behind him. "What has happened?" cried Hakin, so excited that Mel thought he had forgotten his flowery mode of address. "You are wounded, Rover is wounded—and who is this Departing One?" "He looks already departed," said Mel. "I don't know who he is. But I can tell you what he tried to do, before he was shot by his own pal. Not now, though, Hakin. Rover is hurt badly, and needs a doctor." "Yes, the dog is wounded. We must call our veterinarian." With a choked feeling in his throat, Mel dropped down beside the panting dog and smoothed the fur on the great head. Rover didn't even open his eyes, but continued to breathe heavily through his open mouth. A half minute later, to Mel's relief, the vet appeared. While he was examining Rover, Mel was able to explain to Hakin what had happened. He could see that through the greasepaint the rubber man's face was growing grim. "This, O My Youthful Friend, is again the doing of Gard Closker." "I don't think so," said Mel. "I wouldn't want to defend anybody who hurt my dog. But we have to be fair even to him. He's in the audience himself, with Betty. I don't think he'd let his men try any dirty work while the two of them were around." Hakin paused irresolutely. "Perhaps you are right, O Shrewd One. There is logic in your words. A pity this man here is no longer among the living. We might have questioned him." "Maybe we can guess some of the answers without questioning. I don't think he came here chiefly to cause trouble in the circus. I think he came to kill me. And it was Rover who stopped him." "What makes you think so, O Youth of Many Ideas? Did he not attempt to arouse the kabror to emit an evil fragrance?" "I know, but I think that was just to get me to follow him and walk into a trap. He didn't go into my dressing room itself. I guess he started to, but was afraid to go ahead because of Rover. He just put his arm in and threw something for the beast to eat, knowing that I'd have to get out and would probably chase after him." "You may be correct, O Actor in Love With Applause. I shall discuss the matter with Bolam." The doctor who had been examining Rover now stood up. "His chest is slightly singed from a blast, and a bullet passed through the edge of his right lung. It's serious, but I don't think he's in too much danger. I'll give him a shot of antibiotic complex and bandage him up, and his own body should do the rest. Mars, with its low gravity and dry air, is a pretty healthful place for man and beast, when they're not being shot at. Keep him in bed for a few days, and he'll recover." He began to spread a salve carefully on the dog's chest. Then he remarked, "But how about you, Son? You're wounded too, aren't you?" "Gosh, I forgot. You shouldn't have mentioned it, Doctor. Now that you've reminded me, my left arm's beginning to hurt. But I don't think it amounts to much." "I'll be judge of that. Take your jacket off and let me have a look at it. Most of my patients may be dumb brutes, but I've treated plenty of human animals in my time too." Mel noted that the doctor's examination was conducted almost without words. A man who was used to examining animals didn't get in the habit of asking how his patient felt, or listening to a story about symptoms. He simply went over the arm very carefully and made sure that no bones were broken. "Just a surface flesh wound," he said finally. "It missed the biceps, so it won't cramp your style too much." Mel waited impatiently while the doctor put a porous bandage on. He was more worried about the dog than about himself. He asked, "Aren't you going to put a bandage on him? He needs it more than I do." "Hold your horses, Son." The veterinarian took a sponge of plastic wool and began carefully to wipe away the salve he had smeared on just a few moments before. The scorched hair from Rover's fur came away over a small area, giving the dog a bald patch on his chest. Then the vet began to put the bandage on. That was a lot simpler, as he remarked to Mel, than it had been in the old days. All he had to do was put on a series of porous strips that were flexible enough to give as the animal breathed in and out, but at the same time wouldn't pull at the dog's skin or put painful pressure on the wound. "You'll have to leave this on for a week," he said. "There's a healing promoter in the bandage strips themselves, and it'll speed up the formation of new healthy skin, at the same time as it prevents infection. The main thing, as I said, is to make sure that the animal rests. And sometimes that isn't easy." "I'll see to that, Doc," said Mel. He patted the dog again, gently. "How are you, Rover, old boy? Feeling better?" The dog wasn't panting quite so hard now, but his eyes were still closed. The vet said dryly, "My patients never say they're feeling better, but they get well. I've cured some customers that were hurt a lot more than this one. You have an animal cot for him, don't you, Hakin?" "Yes, there is a suitable place of repose for the Injured One." The rubber man said to Mel, "You can leave him in our hands, O Faithful to Your Friend. Go back and see the rest of the acts." "The rest of the acts?" Mel shook himself. "That's right, the circus is still going on. I thought it would be over by now." "It is not even half over," said Hakin. "It takes very little time to shoot two men and a dog. The best acts are still to come." "I don't want to leave Rover yet." "He needs you not, O Oversolicitous One. Permit him to rest quietly, and you go." Reluctantly, Mel allowed himself to be persuaded, and returned to his dressing room. An emergency air exhaust had been applied with efficiency, and there was little odor left. The kabror, Mel noted, was resting in his cage, the piece of frankfurter that had caused the trouble now digesting peacefully in his stomach. Almost guiltily, Mel peered out at the arena. Somehow, it seemed wrong for him to be enjoying himself while Rover lay injured. He knew that it was nonsense to feel this way, but he couldn't help it. It was the acts themselves that made him forget his feelings. Hakin was right, he admitted to himself, his own act couldn't compare with any of them, and if he had attempted to follow them, the audience would have been bored to death. There was an animal performance that created a near-riot of laughter. For several weeks Mel had seen Bolam carefully training the great pink-furred beast which, along with the tiger, had been such a nuisance to move from the ship. What he hadn't realized, and what Bolam hadn't bothered to tell him, was that the performance of this beast was but part of a well-planned act which lasted for fifteen minutes. The pink beast was a school teacher, wearing giant spectacles (over non-existent eyes). Its pupils were a dozen lively and very unscholarly monkey-like creatures, which wiggled, rather than sat, restlessly at their desks, their paws and their double-tails continually seeking to do some mischief. The great lumbering school teacher stood by helplessly as his "pupils" played tag, scampering around the walls and over the desks, tossed chalk at him and at each other, and smeared each other with bright paints placed in old-fashioned inkwells. A principal—a tall and stately ostrich-like bird, a foot-high formal collar failing to cover its long red neck—came in and quacked like a duck for order, only to retire in confusion when the pupils centered their attention on him. Mel noted that it was especially the smaller school children in the audience who liked this act. And next to them in enjoyment were several men and women whom Mel suspected of being, school teachers themselves. By Earth standards—and these were the standards that Mel had known for most of his seventeen years plus—it was the acrobatic acts which were most impressive and sensational. And of all the acrobatic acts, Mel had never imagined one more spectacular than that of the Bellinis. To the Bellinis, seven men and two girls, nothing in the way of leaps and turns was impossible. The low gravity of Mars put no difficulty at all in the way of giant bounds and multiple somersaults that were entirely out of the question on his native planet. The red planet was an acrobat's showplace. You might think that in gravityless space, or on the surface of Earth's moon, where the acceleration due to gravity was only one-sixth of a gee, even more spectacular effects would be possible. Oddly enough, as Mel had learned from Hakin and Bolam, they weren't. Take the Moon, for instance. With the same muscular force, you could leap twice as high there as you could here on Mars. But it would also take you twice as much time to go up and twice as much to come down. What you gained in height you lost in speed. Your whole act was performed in slow motion. And once you slowed down that much, you had a loss in effect, so that although you were actually throwing yourself around in space, it looked for all the world like an under-water act on Earth. No, Mars had just about the right gravity to display acrobatic acts at their best. You had plenty of time to twist and turn, and at the same time enough speed to keep the audience from falling asleep. There was another point that Mel, as a young acrobat, appreciated more than the audience did. You didn't need nets to catch a performer who missed his grip. On Earth a thirty foot fall would mean broken bones, possibly a fractured spine. Here a thirty foot fall was no more of a shock than an eleven foot fall would have been on Earth. But it wasn't just the increase in distance alone that made for safety. You could fall from sixty feet, and still land with little more than a bad jolt, because you had time to get set, to adjust yourself, for the impact. On Earth it took you two seconds to fall sixty-four feet. Here it took you three and a half seconds, and you landed with about half speed. Of course, thought Mel, you couldn't afford to get careless, even if the gravity was low. There were several cases on record of men who had fallen as little as five feet and broken their necks. Most of the credit for that, though, had to be given to potent Martian liquor, rather than to the pull of Martian gravity. And none of the Bellinis drank, at least while on tour. When the troupe finally marched out of the arena—all seven men and both girls balanced in an intricate twenty-foot high pyramid on the sturdy two feet of a single understander —Mel couldn't help joining the audience in applause. He had thought that everybody in the troupe was young and handsome. The graceful poses, the glittering costumes, the bright greasepaint, and the litheness of performance had created that illusion. But when they came out of the arena and he got a good look at them, he saw that two of the men might be called middle-aged. One of them, in fact, looked as if he were in his fifties. To Mel, this made the performance all the more remarkable. He said, "Gee, Mr. Bellini, you were swell. I never thought there could be an act like yours." The man laughed. "Thanks, kid. Only my name isn't Bellini, and—say, you were on before, with that dog and kabror, weren't you?" "That's right, Mr.—" "Ferencz, Jan Ferencz. Old man Bellini died before you were born, but the act still keeps his name." "It's good by any name." "Not a bad act of your own. First time you ever went on?" "I never even saw a circus before this," admitted Mel. "Well, you started in by seeing the best. But I'd better get back to my dressing room. See you later." The man disappeared, and Mel looked after him, baffled. He had thought that at least one of the Bellinis should be named Bellini. And the best bet for that had seemed the oldest of the troupe. Another animal act was on, this time a group of lions and tigers. The robot trainer had done its work well, and all the beasts performed perfectly on cue. Their trainer carried a small wand, which the audience might think was just for the sake of appearance, but which Mel knew was capable of imparting a severe electric shock to any of the felines which forgot the lessons it had been given by the training robot. As it happened, none of them forgot, and you might have thought, from the way they acted, that these wild beasts had never had a nasty, man-killing thought in their great handsome heads. But Mel—and the audience—knew better. It was odd, he told himself, that although Mars and Venus had their share of strange animals, some of them native to the two planets, and some of them varieties of more familiar beasts that had been brought in by early colonists, yet when you wanted a beast that was really ferocious, one whose mere presence was enough to give you goosepimples at the thought of meeting it face to face out in the open, you had to go to good old Earth for it. No matter what part of the solar system you were in, lions and tigers still had the old appeal of beauty and danger wrapped in a single lithe package. His attention strayed from the act long enough for him to note the place where Betty had been sitting. She was still there. But her uncle was gone. With sudden determination, he changed rapidly into his street clothes, and just at the end of the act, he slipped into the empty seat beside her. "Hello, Betty," he said. She glanced at him, then flushed and turned away. "I didn't think you'd want to talk to anybody suspicious, like me." "You're not the one we suspect. It's your uncle." "Thank you so much for your kind opinion of me and my family. Does Rover share it?" Mel said slowly, "Rover is in no condition to have opinions. He's been hurt." She look up anxiously. "What happened?" Mel told her about the two men who had tried to kill him, and Betty turned pale. She said in a low voice, "Surely you don't suspect that my uncle had anything to do with that? He told you himself that he wouldn't hire men to commit crimes." "No, I don't suspect him. These men wanted to get rid of me for reasons that have nothing to do with the circus. This time I think I can give your uncle a clean bill of health." "But I don't understand. Why should any one want to kill you? What good would it do any one?" "That's what I'm trying to figure out." Betty stared at him, the new act which was now going on out in the circus arena forgotten. "This is the first time an attempt has been made against me on Mars, but it has happened before, on Earth." "You ought to tell the police!" "I don't know whether that will do any good, but I guess they've been called in by now. However, I don't want to talk about that. I just mentioned it because of Rover. Betty, I know that your uncle doesn't like me or anybody else connected with this circus. But how do you feel?" "Well—I like you well enough to talk to you. And I like Rover, even though he hurt my feelings. I still don't see anything wrong in my uncle's not using his right name on the ship." "Let's forget about that. Would you like to go to the movies with me? Tomorrow night, right after my act? There's a new three-plus D show, just in from Earth." "I'd like to go. But—" "But what?" demanded Mel. "Don't tell me you've got another date." "It isn't that. I turned one down. The thing is—you were a stowaway on the ship. So you can't have much money. Suppose I pay our way in." Mel shook his head. "I'm getting paid a salary for my act with Rover and the kabror. More than I deserve, I guess, but Bolam and Hakin are generous. Some of what I get goes to pay them back for my passage, a small amount each week, but there's enough left over for spending money. I can take you." "I won't let you do that, but I'll compromise. We'll each pay our own way." Mel frowned, but Betty insisted. Finally, he said, "All right, if that's the only way you'll go out with me. See you tomorrow night. Come to think of it, with Rover unable to move and my arm hurt, they may cut out the act altogether for a few days. So be ready early." The act in front of them was coming to an end, and the applause of the audience cut off further speech for a moment. But Mel looked up, and at the end of the aisle he saw Gard Closker approaching. The man saw him too, and his gaze was cold and steely as it shifted from Mel to his niece. Mel wasn't afraid of him, but he thought it advisable, for Betty's sake, to avoid an argument. No use having Closker get nasty with her just because he was angry with Mel. So, with a final, "See you tomorrow," Mel slipped away. The Martian police, as he had expected, had been called in and were making an investigation in the dressing rooms. There was a Detective Lieutenant Blazer looking around, and half a dozen assistants with cameras and molecular records from the Homicide Division, as well as a medical examiner. Mel wondered what all these men could have found. Bolam rumbled, "Where have you been, Mel? The police have been wanting to talk to you." "Hakin told me to look at the rest of the acts," said Mel. "And I've been speaking to a friend." Bolam frowned. "Sometimes I think you make friends too easily," he said. "However—go ahead, Mel, tell the Lieutenant your story." Mel repeated once more what had happened, and Lieutenant Blazer listened silently. "You say you didn't get a good look at the man who did the shooting?" he asked finally. "Things happened too fast. All I could say for sure is that I never saw him before, that I know of." "How about the man who was killed." "I never saw him either." The Lieutenant asked casually, "Ever been in Blister Seven?" Mel stared. "Blister Seven? Why, no, Lieutenant, I've never seen the place. This is the only place I've ever been on Mars. And we just got here today." "So I've been told. I was just wondering whether I had been told right." Mel flushed. "If Bolam or Hakin told you, you can believe them. They don't lie." "Don't get excited, Mel. I'm not calling anybody a liar. It just happens that I have a reason for making sure. The man who was killed came from Blister Seven. He was reported involved in a hold-up there just two days ago. I wondered what he was doing here, more than a thousand miles away." "Looks as if he'd been sent here," said Bolam. "It does. Do you know anybody in Blister Seven, Mel?" "Well, in a way—but the man I know couldn't have anything to do with trying to kill met He's John Armstrong, and he was my father's partner." "That's interesting. We'll have to do a little investigating of Mr. Armstrong. And then, Mel, maybe we'll have a little talk with him." After the police had gone, Mel went over to see how Rover was doing. The vet had taken the trouble to reassure him about Rover, and he shouldn't have worried, but he couldn't help feeling uneasy. The dog was resting quietly, his eyes closed. As Mel came over, his eyes opened, and he tried to lift his head. Mel gently pushed him down. "It's all right, Rover," he said. "You take it easy." The dog obeyed and closed his eyes again. Except for the rise and fall of his bandaged chest, and the motion of his stomach as he breathed, he didn't move a muscle. Mel might have thought he was asleep. But he was sure that Rover knew his master was there. It was queer, thought Mel as he watched the dog, how everything changed once you got off Earth and were out in space, or on a low gravity planet like Mars. You adjusted in all sorts of ways you had never thought of before. Like the way you walked or sat, even the way you slept. He stood there staring at Rover for half an hour, and in all that time, the dog didn't move any muscles that weren't involved in the breathing process. On Earth, when you slept, you were always changing position, as one set of muscles after another became strained with supporting the body's weight, and you shifted over to a new set. Here the body weighed so little that you could sleep half a night through without moving. On Earth there were people who couldn't sleep on their backs, or their right sides. Here they learned to sleep comfortably in almost any position the body could assume. You could even sleep standing up without appreciable discomfort. There seemed to be no end to the changes that an apparently minor factor like low gravity made in the details of everyday living. Even your eating habits were changed. The food you chewed didn't slide down into your stomach so fast, and it took a little longer to digest. But you didn't mind that, because there were compensations. You didn't have to support your body weight against a strong downward pull, which you got used to on Earth without remembering it was there. Here your muscles were under less strain, unless you were deliberately using them to move yourself or some object, and you felt less tense. Yes, the physical details of living on Mars could be very pleasant, once you were really used to them. After a while, in the midst of these and similar thoughts, Mel looked up to see Hakin standing nearby him. "I despise myself for interrupting your profound meditations, O Pensive One," said Hakin. "But my Powerful Partner wishes to speak to you." "I wasn't thinking anything profound," replied Mel as he moved away from Rover. "Just that so many little things are different on Mars. Like your foot falling asleep. I guess that doesn't happen here either." "Your deductions are correct, O Penetrating Philosopher," said Hakin. "Feet do not slumber on Mars. But brains do." "Don't worry," said Mel. "I'm wide awake." He found Bolam pacing up and down restlessly, like one of his own caged tigers. The strong man said, "I think we're beginning to learn something about the people who are trying to kill you, Mel. And I'm beginning to suspect what the motive may be." "You think that John Armstrong has something to do with it?" "He has everything to do with it." Mel looked doubtful. "Do you not think so, O Intended Victim?" asked Hakin. "He didn't seem to me like the kind of man who'd kill anybody," replied Mel. "As I told you before, he's just a harmless, absent-minded old scientist." "Perhaps not so absent-minded as you think," said Bolam. "The thing that baffled me in the beginning was the question of motive. It seemed pointless that anybody should want to kill a young man who had no enemies and didn't threaten to harm any one. But the more we learned about you, the clearer it became that the motive must be associated with your father. That business of his and John Armstrong's must have been valuable. It represented property and equipment, as well as the rights to several inventions on the control of robots. When your father and mother were killed, what happened to your father's half of the partnership?" "I don't know," said Mel. "I was too young to think of such things at the time." "Did you have any relatives that you knew of? Any uncles or aunts?" "Nobody. That's one of the reasons, I guess, why I was put in an orphanage." "Then it would appear, O Despoiled One, that this John Armstrong kept all for himself," said Hakin quietly. "Yes," said Bolam. "That's what he did. But he knew all the time that the property was yours—if you ever grew up to claim it. Maybe he didn't worry about it at first, while you were still in the orphanage. Possibly it wasn't worth too much then, either. But as the value of what your father had left increased, Armstrong became afraid that you would wake up to what he had done and demand your share. That's when he first arranged to have you killed." "I can't believe that, Bolam. It just didn't fit in with the character of the John Armstrong I knew." "Perhaps you do not know him as well as you think. Consider, O Skeptical One," said Hakin. "On Earth there are attempts on your life. Then, in space you disappear, and for a time Armstrong does not know where you are. The attempts cease. I do not count the incident of the man who cut through the wall on the ship, for that was planned by Closker, and was intended to harm not so much you as us. However, once you get to Mars, the attempts begin again. Ask yourself why." "The reason is obvious," Bolam answered for Mel. "You sent that radiogram to Armstrong and told him where you were going. That gave him the chance to send a couple of hired killers after you." "Maybe it sounds logical to you," said Mel slowly. "But I still find it hard to believe. I remember John Armstrong from the days when my father was alive. Uncle John, I called him then. I liked him a lot. And he liked me, as much as he could like any one or anything living. I can't think he's changed so much." "It is possible, O Weak-Minded One," said Hakin, "to be some one's kind uncle and yet be a scoundrel. Let me recall to your attention your friend Betty's Uncle Gard. To her he is loving and considerate." "But John Armstrong isn't in the least like Gard Closker. Take this question of motive, for instance, that Bolam brought up. You talk about his wanting to keep the whole partnership for himself. But John Armstrong never cared much about money. I remember hearing my father say that. His real interest was his inventions." "People change, My Naive Young Friend," said Hakin. "A baby cares nothing for money either. But he grows up to care." "I suppose so," admitted Mel. "But I still don't believe that John Armstrong is the kind of man to commit murder." "At present it doesn't matter much whether you believe it or not," observed Bolam. "If any further attempts are made, you can be sure that Armstrong won't make them in person. You'll just have to be on guard against everybody." "I'll be careful." Hakin frowned. "You say that too carelessly. You must not walk around on Mars unaccompanied, O Unhappy One," he said. "Now that Rover is unable to protect you, you must rely on us. When you leave the circus and go out into the city, either Bolam or I must be with you at all times." "There are times when two's company and three's a crowd. I've got a date for tomorrow night with Betty. I don't think she'll like the idea of my bringing a friend to keep an eye on me. I don't like it myself." "Why not?" asked Bolam. "Hakin will love to go along and help you to entertain her. He can tell her some wonderful stories. A few of them are true, too." "We shall speak, O Chaperoned One, about her uncle, Gard Closker. She will learn about more villainy than she ever knew existed." Hakin was half smiling as he spoke, but Mel could see that he meant what he said about going along on all Mel's trips. It simply wasn't safe for Mel to go out on Mars without protection. He groaned at the thought. A fine time he'd have on his date, with Hakin or Bolam along. CHAPTER 10 MEL IS FOLLOWED BY THIS time the performance had come to an end, and the audience was filing out. Mel went over to take another look at Rover. The dog seemed not to have moved since he had left, although as Mel came in he once more opened his eyes and raised his head slightly. In the way he slept, Rover was all dog. His nose remained on guard even when his eyes were closed. For a time Mel stood by the dog and stroked his head. Then he quietly moved away. As he was leaving the room, a man spoke to him. "How's your friend?" "Getting along all right, thanks." For a moment Mel couldn't place the man. Then he realized who the latter was Jan Ferencz, the oldest of the Bellinis. The change from acrobat's costume to street clothes had thrown him off. Even the man's face looked like a different person's without the greasepaint. Before he had seemed gay and lively. Now he appeared to be a quiet, ordinary individual, more like a high school teacher than a circus performer. "Guess you're worried about him. But he'll get over it. Animals don't stay sick long, even on Earth. And on Mars, wounds heal in no time." "That's what the vet said." "You can take his word for it." Ferencz said slowly, "I hope there's no more trouble around here." "You don't hope it any more than I do," said Mel. "I hear you had a little run-in with some of Closker's men on the ship coming over. I've met Closker before. Could you pin anything on him?" "Closker said he wasn't responsible. He said he wouldn't do anything illegal." "Not unless he thought he could get away with it," said the acrobat dryly. "As I say, I know Closker. I worked for him long enough, and I can tell you I was glad when I had the chance to leave him. Bolam and Hakin are a lot better to work for. In the first place, they're performers themselves. They know how we feel about things. And then—well, I guess they're decent people, and Closker isn't. That's the real difference." "I guess most people are decent," said Mel. He felt pleased at the other man's readiness to talk. Somehow, in Jan Ferencz's attitude there was an acceptance of him as a fellow performer. "That, my boy, depends on how you get to know them. I'll say this much—most people have good intentions. They want to be decent, and they will be so long as it isn't too hard a job or doesn't cost them too much." He paused, and then went on, "I remember the old circus days, long before you were born. Circus and carnival people were kind and thoughtful, and if you needed it, they'd give you the shirt off their back, even if it turned out to be a torn shirt. But at the same time, a lot of them were crooks who made their living by robbing the poor fools who came to see them." He shook his head disapprovingly. "You can have no idea what some of those old-time concessions and side-shows were like. Full of frauds, from games of chance, in which the customer didn't have a chance, to marvels of nature that were purely man-made. Things like the spider-woman and the wild man from Venus. Done with mirrors, and fake features made of plastic, and a smooth line of talk. Of course all the fakes went out when large-scale travel started to Venus and Mars, and people got a sight of the real wonders those planets had to show." "I thought that fake stuff went out more than fifty years ago," said Mel. "Sure it did. How old did you think I was?" Ferencz chuckled. "I'm seventy-six, Mel." "You can't be! No old man could do the tricks you do!" "People tell me I don't look and act my age, and in fact, I don't feel it either. But that's because I stay on a low-gravity planet. On a place like Earth I'd age fast. And I'd be out of the Bellini act in half an hour with a broken leg or a pulled muscle. Yes, sir, for an acrobat, there's no place like Mars." "The way you did those somersaults, I thought you were about twenty-five," said Mel. "Oh, I'm good, I'll admit that. You don't have to twist my arm to get me to agree with you. But I'm not as good as I was, not by a long shot. And another thing, Mel. When you're my age, you know that although it's nice to win a fight against odds, it's even nicer when you're in a tough spot to get a little help. Why didn't you yell for help when you chased after that crook before?" "I guess I just didn't think of it," said Mel. "Better learn to think of it. Anybody that tries to harm a circus is an enemy to all of us, and we'll all join in going after him. In the old days, we were always getting into trouble. Sometimes one of the people that got gypped at a concession would try to get his money back. And once in a while, the crowd that tried to help him would get out of hand and attack all the circus people around. We had a way of handling situations like that. Guess most of the young ones around here don't know about it, because they don't need to know. But it could come in handy again, and the old timers haven't forgotten it. And it wouldn't hurt you to keep it in mind too." "What was it?" asked Mel, thinking that although Ferencz looked young, the way he talked betrayed his age. He took an awfully long time to come to the point. "We'd just yell, 'Hey, Rube!' That was a call for everybody in the circus to drop what he was doing in a hurry, pick up a tent peg or wrench, and come running." " 'Hey, Rube!' " repeated Mel. "I'll have to remember that." "But don't use it unless there's real trouble," cautioned Ferencz. One of the girls who had been in the Bellini act came past them. Despite the fact that she too had changed into street clothes, Mel found that he recalled her without trouble. Strange, he thought, how much easier it was for him to recognize a girl than an elderly man. She smiled and said to Ferencz, "Have a heart, Pop. Don't tell him the story of your life all at once. You'll wear out his ears." "You go roll a hoop, Linda," said Ferencz. "I'm giving this young fellow advice that'll do him good. And that includes staying away from female acrobats. Especially when they're fifty years old." The girl laughed as she turned a corner and disappeared. Mel wondered how old she really was. The way people stayed young on Mars, she might actually have been fifty—except, he suddenly realized, that she had laughed at the old man's words. That proved she was young. If she were really close to fifty, she wouldn't have seen anything funny in the remark. Ferencz went on talking, but Mel's attention wandered. And then Hakin came toward them, saw what was happening, and sent the talkative member of the Bellinis on his way. Mel would have wanted to see some of the Martian colony where they had landed, but Bolam and Hakin had forbidden him to go alone at any time. And now it was late in the evening, and the danger would be greater than ever. There was nothing to do but turn in. Mel checked once more to make sure that Rover was all right, and then went to sleep in the same room. In the pale light of the Martian morning, Mel awoke to find Rover somewhat more lively. Mel brought the dog a dish full of water, which the animal lapped slowly, but Mel didn't offer him food. Rover usually ate but a single large meal a day, with occasional snacks. Today there would be no snacks. Then Mel went out to find Bolam and Hakin. The two partners were busy with sheaves of papers which they were trying to put in order. Bolam growled, "This is the one thing I hate about running a circus. Some day all this paper work will kill me." "We need a secretary, O Impatient One," said Hakin. "Either that," suggested Mel, "or quit doing some of the acts yourselves. Training the animals and rehearsing takes up a lot of your time." "We can't give that up," said Bolam. "That's the part that's most fun. This paper work is necessary, but it wears me out. I wasn't built to push a pencil. I'd rather lift a ton of bricks than go through an ounce of papers." He sighed. "Come on, Mel, let's take a look at the city. If Hakin doesn't mind, I'll finish this when I get back." "Your departure, O Confounder of Confusion, will be no loss," said Hakin. "Go, and guide our young friend in his explorations." Bolam had been in Marsopolis on many occasions, and he had watched the place grow from a small colony to the thriving city it now was. There were close to two hundred thousand people living inside the Blister, he told Mel, most of them in the urban part, and a few thousand in the large factory farms where they raised some of the food plants that required a high oxygen content in the atmosphere. Except for a few minor items, each Blister was self-supporting. It seemed to Mel that the Blister was overcrowded—there were approximately seven thousand people for each of its twenty-eight square miles—and it struck him as odd that the streets should be so nearly empty. Bolam said, "The people aren't out in the streets. You don't know how this place is organized, Mel. For every square mile, more than six thousand of them are at work, and a few hundred, who work at night, are now asleep." "But I can see only a dozen people in this block," objected Mel. "There are several reasons for that. This isn't a residential district, so you won't see many children here. And most of our delivery services take place at night, so that you don't have large numbers of delivery trucks. Besides, there are a great many blocks in a square mile," pointed out Bolam. "Seven thousand people per square mile is a heavy population density for a country as a whole, but it's nothing at all for a large city. No, there's plenty of room here." Mel was looking all around him. Certainly the buildings had been widely spaced, and there were plenty of parks and open squares. The buildings themselves rose to a height of five stories, and to Mel they didn't seem strongly constructed at all. But he reminded himself that in the low Martian gravity, walls and foundations didn't have to be very solid. And five stories wasn't very high. Fire escapes ran down to the third floor, and there, for the sake of economy of construction, they stopped. From the third floor it was possible for any one but an invalid to jump with practically no danger. The city seemed to be perfectly flat, but it was hard to be sure. Your body felt so light that you could climb a slight rise or descend a gentle slope without noticing it. You could see the single great wall of the Blister stretching to the right and left, as well as above you. It extended far into the distance, where it seemed to curve down like a horizon to meet the Martian ground. They had walked several blocks when Bolam said unexpectedly, "I think we'd better take a cab." "A cab?" repeated Mel, as if he found it hard to believe his ears. "Why, it's a pleasure to walk here." "I've got a hard day's work ahead of me," grunted Bolam. "And I have to put on a couple of tough acts tonight. I have to save my strength." Mel stared at him, hoping to find that Bolam was joking. But the strong man was already hailing a small electrically driven cab, one of the few that was cruising the streets. Mel gazed at the cab with distaste. It was built low to the ground, and barely had room for two passengers in addition to the driver. It looked for all the world like an overgrown baby carriage. Mel was still puzzled as they got in. The cab rode along rather slowly, and Bolam pointed out what passed for sights on Mars. There were no historic buildings naturally, no slums, no show palaces. The entire colony had been built for people who would live and work here, and although there were several open theaters where concerts and plays and movies were given, most of the buildings, outside of the apartment houses, consisted of offices, smokeless factories, and administration buildings. They were still moving slowly, in fact Mel felt that they were crawling. "Can't we go any faster?" he asked in annoyance. "If you want to," said Bolam, and leaned forward to give instructions to the driver. They picked up speed at once, but they didn't move steadily. There were only a few low or high spots in the well-paved road, but every time they hit one of these they rose a foot into the air, the wheels of the cab spinning uselessly while they slowly came down again. "There are some advantages to high gravity," said Bolam. "It keeps the car on the ground." "They could get the same effect as increasing the gravity by making the cabs heavier, couldn't they?" asked Mel. "Not quite. Besides, it would be a waste of materials as well as of power. This way the cars get their power on a special broadcast beam from the central atomic station at a cost of only a few cents a day." They slowed down again, this time almost to a stop before turning a corner, the driver applying his brakes with extreme caution. "More trouble from the low gravity," observed Bolam. "Apply your brakes hard, and you'll go head over heels, or skid and turn turtle. Accidents of that kind are fifty times as frequent here as on Earth, although it's true that they're less serious when they do happen." "He wasn't going very fast in the first place," said Mel. "Why couldn't he have turned around the corner without slowing down at all?" "You can't go around curves rapidly here. If you've ever driven on Earth, you'll note that the outside of a curve in the road is raised higher than the inside—it's banked, as they call it—to keep the wheels in contact with the ground as the car turns. Well, here the wheels would rise far higher than on Earth, and require very steep banking. And on city streets, that kind of banking is impracticable altogether. The only answer is to drive slowly." "I guess we would have done better to walk," said Mel. "I just don't understand why you took this cab in the first place." He turned around and looked back. "Say, there's a car that went around the corner a little faster than we did. And you're right, Bolam, they almost climbed up on the sidewalk. Look at them wobble!" "They were afraid they'd lose us," replied the strong man. "Lose us?" "They've been following us ever since we left the circus. With the streets almost empty, they stood out like so many sore thumbs. That, O My Imperceptive Friend, as Hakin would say, is why I decided to take a cab in the first place." For a second Mel sat there with his mouth open. "I ought to have my head examined," he admitted finally. "Or my eyes. I couldn't figure it out." And then he shuddered. "If I'd been alone, I'd never have noticed. It's lucky you're with me." "Yes, the people who want to kill you are in earnest. In dead earnest, I might say. But I don't think they'll dare to use a gun, blast or missile, out here in the center of town. They're hoping to get you in a more secluded spot." Mel shivered. "I don't like the idea of being followed everywhere I go." "Neither do I," said Bolam. "And I'm going to do something about it. You stay in the cab. I'm getting out for a minute." He leaned forward again to whisper instructions to the driver, and the latter nodded. At the next corner they slowed down again, almost to a complete stop, and a second after the cab turned, Bolam opened the door and leaped out, while the cab continued a short distance down the street. Bolam almost went head over heels, but fortunately he was able to steady himself at the curb. A few seconds later, the cab that was trailing them crawled around the corner in pursuit of their own. Bolam sprang into action as suddenly as if he were a robot set off by an electronic impulse. Catapulting toward the cab from the curb, the strong man knocked the vehicle over on its side. His action must have caught those inside the cab by complete surprise. Cries and curses of alarm came from them, and then a shot rang out, the bullet tearing through the top of the cab. Bolam lifted the vehicle with the men in it high into the air, and spun it around, like a wrestler giving his opponent the airplane whirl. Then he smashed it to the ground again. The cab with Mel in it had stopped about fifty feet away, and Mel was staring back in fascination. He saw Bolam tear open the somewhat crushed door and pull out of the cab two dazed and shaken men. Mel said to his own driver, "Wait here," and got out. He ran back to see at closer hand what was going on. "Recognize either one of them?" demanded Bolam. Mel shook his head. "I don't think I've ever seen either of them before. Maybe—maybe you made a mistake." "I don't think so. They were following us, all right." One of the men, who was about Bolam's height, but only half his width, said shakenly, "You'll go to jail for this." "More likely I'll get a medal," growled Bolam. "And a couple of rewards that I'm sure are posted for you." "We weren't doing anything to you." "You had intentions, Mister. I don't like being followed. Or shot at." "That's because you attacked us first." The streets had seemed almost deserted, but the sound of shooting was unusual enough to have brought a crowd around them. The second of the men from the cab, a tall slim man with a slight mustache, turned to the people around them. "Look at this fellow!" he shouted. "Look at the size of him! We weren't doing anything at all—just riding along in a cab minding our own business—and he knocked it over. He doesn't even live on Mars, either! He's just a foreigner from Earth. Are you going to let him get away with this?" There was a low murmur of resentment from the crowd. But those in the front ranks took a good look at Bolam and had no trouble in controlling their feelings. Mel noted that even those who muttered loudest showed no desire to get too close to a man who was twice the width of any normal individual. Those in the rear, however, and the newcomers who kept coming, were pushing the others closer. Mel found that the ring around them was becoming uncomfortably small. "Stand back!" roared Bolam, and the pushers froze in their tracks. "My friends," he said, "this is no business of yours. These men that you're so worried about are crooks. And they're carrying guns. You know that's illegal." "We need guns for self-defense against thugs like you!" cried the first man. "This fellow's a menace. He's a strong man in the circus, and he thinks that just because he's got bigger muscles than other people, he can push everybody around." Murmurs were arising in the crowd again, and once more, although those in the front row tried hard to hold their places, the circle became smaller. The two men noticed a momentary opening in the crowd, and made a sudden dash to sneak through. Bolam leaped after them, and the excitement of the onlookers rose to the boiling point. The mass of men swept in, and Mel, separated from Bolam and the two criminals, found himself surrounded and almost unable to move. Somebody knocked him off balance, somebody else hit him in the face. Mel had never before found himself in the middle of a hostile crowd, and for a few seconds he was terrified. He tried to fight back, but the press of people around him was too great to let him so much as swing his arms effectively. His feet were knocked from under him, and afraid of being trampled, he struggled desperately to stand up again. It would have been no consolation—even if he had time to think of it—that under Martian gravity trampling wasn't quite as unpleasant as it would have been on Earth. It would be bad enough. Everything was happening so fast that he had no real time to think. He could never have said later why the words came to his lips and he called out desperately, "Hey, Rube!" For a few seconds his call for help seemed to bring no results. The swirling mob knocked him off his feet again, and at the same time lifted him and carried him a dozen yards. He tried to struggle free, but the crush of human bodies held him more firmly than the Martian gravity. And then something like a catapult seemed to strike the mass from outside. The pressure on Mel grew less. Men on the outside of the close-massed group were suddenly ejected, like neutrons from an atomic nucleus, and went flying at all angles in orbits of their own. Mel felt the ground under his feet again, and had room to move his elbows, to hit in the face a man who had been poking his fist into Mel's jaw. Suddenly it was over. The crowd around them was scattered, and half a dozen brawny members of the circus crew, led by Jan Ferencz, were facing them. Mel saw Bolam, still standing, and still holding on grimly to the two men who had caused the trouble. The faces of the pair were bruised, and their clothes were ripped to shreds. They hadn't gone unscathed at the hands of their would-be rescuers. Neither had Bolam. There were bruises on his face, and the strong man's clothes too were torn. So, as Mel noted with surprise, were his own. He hadn't been aware of what was happening to them. Jan Ferencz grinned happily at Mel and Bolam. "Haven't been in anything like this for fifty years. Never thought I'd see a riot on Mars." "You wouldn't have, if these two rats hadn't deliberately started it." And Bolam shook the two men as if they were actually the rodents he had called them. "They thought they'd get away." "They'd have done better to keep their mouths shut," said one of the circus crewmen. "They took their chance and lost," said Bolam. "But what brought you to help us?" "Why, we were just going for a stroll to see what changes had taken place since the last time we were here," said Jan. "Then we saw what looked like a riot. We figured it was an all-Martian affair, and the smart thing for us was to stay out. You could have knocked me over with a feather—an ostrich feather, I guess—when I heard somebody yelling, 'Hey, Rube!' " Bolam's brow wrinkled. "What is that supposed to mean?" "You a circus owner and don't know what, 'Hey, Rube!' means!" exclaimed Jan. "How times have changed!" "Most of us didn't know either," admitted one of the crew. "But Jan said it was an old-time circus call for help." "I had been telling Mel about it just last night. Smart boy, Mel. You kept your head when the going got rough." Mel flushed. He thought of telling them that he hadn't really kept his head, but that the words had just seemed to come to him, and that he had yelled them out almost in panic. But he decided that he'd better keep quiet. Never refuse credit, he thought, when it's handed to you on a silver platter. At this moment a policeman finally showed up. He came from around the corner, and when he saw the two battered men and Bolam, who was holding them, his eyes narrowed. At the same time, a couple of men who had been part of the crowd began talking to him excitedly. He came over to Mel and Bolam and the circus crew. "You fellows come with me," he said. "You're under arrest." CHAPTER 11 MEL GETS A CHAPERONE FOR a moment Mel was paralyzed. But Bolam had been in tight spots before, and so had Jan. Both of them began, almost at the same moment, "Just a moment, Officer—" "Quiet!" roared the policeman. "And one at a time!" "Go ahead, Bolam," said Jan generously. "I'll do the talking, all right. Officer, these two men are crooks, and I have reason to believe they're assassins too. One of them tried to shoot me. And—that reminds me—" He slapped their clothes with heavy hands, and the man with the mustache winced as Bolam removed a blaster from him. "They had another gun too," he said. "The other gun must still be in the cab," said Mel. He poked his head in the small vehicle and looked around. Presently he found the gun and dragged it out. "Here you are, Officer. You'd better take care of both weapons," said Bolam. "Now what do you think of these two prize packages?" The policeman said doubtfully, "All the same, you did attack them first." "I had to in order to save our own lives," said Bolam. "But don't take my word for it. Call Lieutenant Blazer. He's on the case." "I think I'll do that. Just a minute." The policeman spoke briefly into his shield phone, and then said, "You're Bolam Turino?" "That's right." "The Lieutenant says to hold everything. He'll be right over." During the five minute wait, the two men began to argue once more that they were respectable citizens who had been foully attacked and mistreated, and Mel had a brief feeling of discomfort. What if these men were perfectly innocent of any evil intentions against him, and Bolam had made a mistake after all? They might have had excellent reasons for carrying guns. His real enemies might be standing in the very crowd that was now gathering around again to watch, completely unsuspected, and laughing up their sleeves. Then Lieutenant Blazer arrived in a small jetcopter plane which flew low over the buildings, and Mel's misgivings vanished. The Lieutenant took one look at the two men and said, "Hello, King. Nice to see you again, Duke." Neither of the two men answered this pleasant greeting. Their chances were finished, and they lapsed into a surly silence. "You know them pretty well, Lieutenant?" asked Mel. "They're old friends. They used to be part of a gang that started young around here. They tried their hands at petty crimes, and graduated to burglary and murder. They were known as the Royal Martians in the old days—some name for a gang of crooks, isn't it? These characters are going to join the rest of their pals, who are taking postgraduate courses in jail. And if you'll hand over those guns, Minneman," he said to the policeman, "we'll take a good look at them in the police laboratory. That missile gun may be the one that was used to shoot the dog in the circus." He nodded to the policeman. "Take the two characters away, Minneman. I'll talk to them later at the station." The crowd, apparently disappointed that there would be no more fireworks, was dispersing. Bolam said, "We won't need the cab any more, Mel. Wait here a minute while I pay the driver." The Lieutenant said, "You're a lucky youngster, Mel, to have friends like Bolam and Hakin. They're the kind that stick by you, and keep their wits about them." "I know that by this time," said Mel. "You've got nothing else to tell me about who might want to kill you?" "I've told you all I know," replied Mel. "Maybe all you think you know," said the Lieutenant thoughtfully. Bolam was returning, and he added, "So far it doesn't add up to much." "You've checked up on John Armstrong?" asked Bolam. "Lieutenant Garand, in Blister Seven, paid him a visit. According to him, the old man seems to live in a world of his own, and is harmless." "That's what I told you," said Mel. Bolam shook his head. "He's the only one who stands to gain from Mel's death." "That's what we'd like to be sure about. We've started to investigate Armstrong's past history and financial affairs. So far we've come across nothing that could be considered incriminating. At the time of your father's death," the Lieutenant said to Mel, "the partnership between him and Armstrong wasn't doing too well. If Armstrong had tried to cash in the assets and pay all the debts they owed, he would probably have ended up in the red. It wasn't until some time afterwards that the firm—now run by Armstrong alone—began to make money." "Then you mean that I really don't have anything coming to me?" asked Mel. "I didn't say that. Armstrong and your father worked on some of their robot inventions together, and whatever financial success Armstrong had later is based on these discoveries. But it is also based on the way he ran the business. He seems, for an absent-minded scientist, to be a surprisingly good business man. It would take a good accountant to figure out how much is coming to you in royalties. But it's undoubtedly a fairly large sum." "And Armstrong has been holding on to it by himself all these years?" demanded Bolam. "Don't you call that a motive?" Lieutenant Blazer shook his head. "You're forgetting the kind of man you're dealing with. So long as the firm was making enough money to get along, Armstrong didn't worry about finances. He set the policies, and hired the men to see that they were carried out. He seems to have set very good policies, but he didn't care about the money they brought in. He just let the profits accumulate without using them for any personal needs. Apparently he doesn't have personal needs. He doesn't smoke or drink, and he isn't married. He doesn't even seem to spend much on food. And he has no intimate friends, unless you can call his secretary a friend. His whole interest is in his work." "He doesn't sound like a murderer to me," admitted Bolam. "He used to be nice to me," said Mel. "I don't think he'd try to kill me. I remember that once when I was about five years old he brought me a puppy for a present. He was absent-minded even then, but kind. I remember that the puppy ran away or was stolen, and then he brought me a mechanical duck to make me happy again." Bolam said, "Just how far have you carried your investigations, Lieutenant. Has Armstrong ever left Mars for Earth? Does he have contacts with people on Earth? Could he possibly have any connections with these crooks we just caught?" "We can't answer all that yet, not with certainty, anyway. So far, though, I can tell you this: The only contacts Armstrong has on Earth, or on Mars, for that matter, are with the engineering firms which install his robots. He hasn't made more than two long trips in the last ten years, one to the Asteroid Belt and the other to Ganymede, in both cases for the purpose of checking up on large installations of robot machinery. And as for crooks—I don't think he'd know how to talk to a crook if he saw one. Not unless the crook was an engineer too." "I think that's carrying it too far, Lieutenant," said Bolam. "He's been around, and he can't be quite that ignorant. There must be a few things about John Armstrong that you don't know." "There's plenty about him that we don't know and intend to find out. But so far there's no indication that he's the man who's instigating these attacks." "He will profit from them if Mel is killed," insisted Bolam. "He'll get more money. That's why we're keeping after him. The only trouble, as I say, is that money means nothing to him. Meanwhile, we've got these two men you caught. Maybe, under a little gentle persuasion, they'll tell us a few things. We're hoping to learn a lot from them." After the Lieutenant had gone, Mel said, "It doesn't look as if John Armstrong is the man. But if he isn't, who is?" Bolam shrugged his great shoulders. "Whoever it is, we've upset his plans for today. Come on, Mel, let's go on with seeing the town." They could walk now without fear of being followed, but Mel had a feeling that they had already seen most of what the city had to show. He was more interested in what lay outside the transparent wall of the Blister, where the hills of the Martian plain stretched away into the distance. From time to time Mel could see an occasional space-suited figure working among the long rows of cabbage-like plants that grew in the fields. The Martian air was thin and clear, and the details of the spacesuits, as well as of the plants, could be seen almost as sharply a mile away as close to the wall. Distance diminished the size of an image, but did not blur it. The sun up above was small, but it looked startlingly bright against the almost black sky. The near absence of an atmosphere, Mel knew, was responsible for the almost complete lack of scattering of the sun's light, and therefore for the blackness of the sky. The brighter stars could be seen easily, even through the Blister walls. And the shadows cast by the sun were black and sharp. At intervals of a quarter of a mile, air locks were built into the walls. "Just in case," explained Bolam. "Sometimes a man miscalculates his oxygen reserve, or his valve gets stuck, and he has to get back here in a hurry." "I thought farming was mechanized," said Mel. "It is, to a large extent. The men are present simply to check on the machinery. Actually, farming on the open fields of Mars is a simple business. The only plants that stand a chance are those of Martian origin, adapted through millions of years to very thin dry air and to a minimum of water. Biological stations test those plants capable of supplying food values that human beings need, and select the best strains. Most of the Martian plants grow from spores, you know, or by root propagation. Seed plants are rare. The Martian soil supplies the minerals, including carbonates and the tiny amount of nitrates required. The main thing we have to do is protect the plants from virus diseases and harvest the crop." In the distance Mel thought that he saw a space-suited man crawling along the ground. When he got a better look, however, he realized that he was looking at a six-footed animal. Another beast like it grazed nearby. "Native Martian 'sheep,' " said Bolam. "Actually they aren't sheep at all, and they're of not much use as food animals. On Earth you can live on meat alone, but you'd starve in a hurry if you tried to live just on these sheep. Their bodies contain almost no protein of a kind we can use. They're useful because they eat weeds." "I wonder what it's like out there," said Mel. "You can hire a space outfit like any tourist and find out," remarked Bolam. "Wearing a helmet and jacket isn't quite as awkward and cumbersome as wearing a space suit, but it's bad enough, and once you get into the open, there isn't much more to see than you can see from here. The only reason an occasional tourist will go out there is to be able to boast to his friends back home about it. It gives him a sense of adventure to talk about how he went out on a Martian desert." "The ground between the plants looks gray," commented Mel. "Is that because of the iron particles?" "Right. They're secreted by the same plant-bacteria team that releases oxygen inside the Blister. But the iron isn't gathered up so rapidly out in the open, and much of it gradually oxidizes again after the growing season and turns into rust once more." Bolam looked at his watch and said, "I guess you've seen enough by now, Mel. I'd better get back to that office work I left. Maybe after tangling with that pair of thugs I'll have enough ambition to tear into a pile of papers." Mel nodded assent. They hadn't really been gone long, but a great many things had happened, and he felt as if he hadn't seen Rover in a week. And he was anxious to find out how the dog was getting along. This time Rover not only lifted up his head in greeting but made an attempt to stand. Mel pushed him gently down. "Easy, boy. You're supposed to rest in bed, remember?" Rover let himself be pushed down, but he didn't close his eyes again. Apparently he had enough of resting. For a time Mel stayed with the dog. His visit seemed to do the animal good, and it made him feel better too. After a few minutes, satisfied that Rover was getting along as well as could be expected, he went into the circus office, where Hakin and Bolam were going over their papers. Bolam, who had taken the two thugs in his stride, was once more groaning over his work. "The trouble with you, O Powerful One," said Hakin, "is that you fear and dislike such labor as this. The difficulties you face here are child's play. A young inexperienced lad like Mel could solve them. But the moment you stare at a shipping schedule, your mind freezes with horror." "Maybe I could lend a hand, Bolam," said Mel. "You do plenty around here, and you've done plenty for me too. It would be only fair for me to help you." "I don't know how much help you'll be, but I'll appreciate every little bit, Mel. Here, sit down, and Hakin will give you instructions." Everything wasn't quite as simple as Hakin had pretended. They were arranging the schedule of engagements for next year's circus tour, and there were a great many questions to settle, from the arrangements of leasing the grounds to the signing of contracts with shipping companies and suppliers of animal foods. "The year after next, O Helpful Youth, if good fortune smiles upon us we shall have our own space ship, the way Closker has. Meanwhile we must wrack our harassed heads to find the lowest rates on regular passenger liners or fast freighters. If you only knew, O Ignorant and Happy One, how deep and intricate our calculations must be to save a few paltry credits!" He might not have known at first, but he soon found out. By the end of the afternoon, he knew why Bolam dreaded the work: His head was a maze of figures, of costs and tonnages and taxes—interplanetary, municipal, income, excise, and several others—all of them whirling around and playing games with each other in his bewildered mind. He felt utterly confused. Hakin was the only one who didn't mind the work. That was because even more than the others, he realized its importance. "You must remember, O Disgusted One, that a few hours of simple labor with paper and pencil may save as much as the circus could earn by a month of hard work. Sometimes success or failure is determined in the signing of contracts, long before the first performance itself." Mel nodded. That much he could understand. And gradually, through all the confusion, he began to get an idea of what Hakin was doing. All the same, he was glad when the rubber man said, "This will be enough for today. Soon we shall eat, and then begin to prepare for the evening's performance." He gazed thoughtfully at Mel. "How is your arm, O Injured One?" "It's all right. To tell you the truth, Hakin, I forgot it had ever been hurt." "As the doctor said, injuries heal quickly on Mars. But without Rover, your act would lack much. Tonight you may go free. You may accompany your friend, Betty, to the movies if you so desire." "Thanks, Hakin." Mel grinned. "As a matter of fact, that's exactly what I was hoping to do after the performance." "You need not stay for the performance at all. How well I know the minds of the young," said 1-lakin complacently. "You will give the girl my regrets. I do not hold it against her that her uncle is Gard Closker. Our relatives we do not choose for ourselves, and personally I hold no grudge against her. If it were possible, I should accompany you tonight as I had planned, and make her acquaintance again." "That's right," said Mel. "You and Bolam are both going to be busy with the circus. You won't be able to come along with me. I'll have this date with Betty alone." "Not alone, O Over-Hasty One," replied Hakin. "It is true that you will lack the pleasure of such company as only Bolam and I would give you. Your loss will be great indeed. But you will have a companion nevertheless." He looked at Mel, and now it was his turn to grin. Mel said in alarm, "What is it, Hakin? What have you got up your sleeve? Don't hold out on me!" "You forget that there is still danger. But the cautious Lieutenant Blazer has not forgotten. Those two men who followed you today may not be the only ones on your trail. The Lieutenant has therefore arranged to have you discreetly accompanied by a plainclothesman wherever you go." "Oh, no!" groaned Mel. "You mean that I can't even have a date without having a cop along?" "It is for your own good, O Rash One," said Hakin. That was as far as Mel could get with him. He said bitterly, "I hope it's a cops-and-robbers movie, and all the cops get killed." Actually he knew that as Hakin said, he would be followed for his own good. That, however, didn't make him feel any better about it. In the evening, shortly before the performance, there was a video call from Lieutenant Blazer himself. First Bolam talked to him, and then Mel. The Lieutenant said, "Mel, we've been questioning those two men who followed you. We already have enough on them to send them up for a good part of their lives, and it wasn't hard to make them talk. Did you ever hear of Little Jupe?" "Little Jupe? Never that I know of, Lieutenant. Is it a new planet? Or an asteroid?" "No, it isn't a new planet or an asteroid. My informants say that they were hired to get you by an underworld character known by that name." "Never beard of him. You have a better chance of knowing people like that than I do," said Mel. "The only underworld characters I know are the ones who come after me." "We realize that. But the fact is that we've never before heard of Little Jupe at all. It would seem that he's an intermediary himself, hired by whoever really wants to kill you. Well, it shouldn't be too hard to find him, if he's still in Blister Seven." "I hope you get him soon, Lieutenant. And by the way, Lieutenant, about my being followed—" "You want to thank me? You're welcome." "No, Lieutenant," said Mel. "I didn't want to thank you. I was just wondering if it was necessary for tonight. It's kind of a nuisance when you're—well, when you're with a friend—to look around and see a man trailing you all the time. A guy wants some privacy once in a while." "A guy wants to keep alive once in a while too," replied Lieutenant Blazer. "But don't worry, Mel, about looking around and seeing a man trailing you. You won't. And this friend of yours won't know anything about it." "But I'll know I'm being watched! No matter if this man of yours keeps out of sight, I'll know he's there." "You won't know anything of the kind. Afraid we'll cramp your style? You just go ahead about your business and stop worrying." "But just for tonight, Lieutenant, couldn't I go without being trailed?" "Nothing doing," said the Lieutenant firmly. "If we leave you out of our sight for a moment or two, that's just the time you can expect trouble." "There'll be plenty of trouble with a man following me," said Mel gloomily. He was supposed to meet Betty near the movie itself, and on the way there, he kept turning around from time to time to see whether he could spot the man who was following him. But now that the day's work was over, the streets were full of hundreds of people streaming to places of amusement, and he couldn't pick out the one man who might be on his trail. He was early, and he had to wait ten minutes for Betty. When she finally did arrive, a little breathless, she said, "I'm sorry we arranged to meet here. You could have come to our hotel." "I thought you didn't want your uncle to know that we were going out together." "I didn't, at first, but when I thought about it a little more, I realized it wasn't right to do things secretly. When he asked me tonight where I was going, I wasn't going to lie to him. I told him about you. And you know, Mel, he wasn't angry at all. He said to go out and have a good time. And to bring you back later. He said he wanted to talk to you." "I don't know what we can talk about. We don't have much in common." "You'll find something. I have an idea, Mel, that you're all wrong about Uncle Gard. He isn't the conniving creature you think he is." "Look, Betty, after what happened on the ship, I have my opinion of him and you have yours. He brought you up, and I guess you have a right to like him. I suppose I'd like a Venusian snake if he brought me up and was good to me. Let's not argue about it." "Are you comparing Uncle Gard to a Venusian snake?" Mel groaned. "Betty, what I'm saying is that I don't want to get into an argument. Not with you, anyway. I didn't say he was a snake, I just gave a snake as an example. I could as well have said a hyena-bird—oh, skip it. How about going in and seeing the movie?" "All right. But from now on, please be careful of the way you talk about Uncle Gard." Before they went in, Mel looked around again, but he couldn't see any one he thought might be a plainclothesman trailing him. He looked around again once they were inside, and Betty noticed it. "What's wrong, Mel?" she asked. "You seem nervous. Is it my glamorous personality?" Mel didn't want to tell her that some one was probably following them and going to stay with them all evening. "We had a little trouble today," he said. And he described to her what had happened. "Too bad you couldn't have had Rover with you," said Betty. "That dog certainly protected you from me all right." "Bolam did pretty well too. You should have seen him knock that car over." "I know he's strong. All the same, I guess it is dangerous for you to go out on Mars, where there are people who hate you. You should have some one with you all the time." "I've got you with me now," said Mel. He didn't add that he also had one of Lieutenant Blazer's plainclothes police. The first picture they saw was a three-D-plus cartoon about Martian Mouse. Martian Mouse had a series of adventures with ferocious mouse-eating cat-plants, and barely escaped with his life—just in time to wake up and discover he had dreamed all his adventures. This was followed by an old newsreel showing things that had happened on Earth the week before. The pictures were flashed through space and caught on a spool of tape at one of the InterPlanet offices. There were new items every day, but the management didn't bother to change the film any oftener than once a week. One of the troubles, thought Mel, with living out in the Martian sticks. The feature picture was called The Monster from Mars. It was a low-budget movie made on Earth, obviously, because a writer and director who really knew Mars would never have made the boners that somehow crept in. Besides, all the characters had their feet practically stuck to the ground. When they walked, they showed no tendency to bounce, as they would have done on the smaller planet, and they used typical Earth gestures. The idea, thought Mel, was silly. According to the writer, there had once been a race of Martian monsters called hypersaurs who had become almost extinct fifty million years ago as the planet lost its heat and moisture. The last monster had taken refuge in an old cavern ten thousand feet below the surface of the planet, and there he had fallen into a kind of hibernation, remaining dormant and yet capable of coming to life again through all the ages that passed. Came the first Earth explorers to Mars. They set up colonies, built the Blisters. And way down beneath the surface of the desert, faint tremors disturbed the sleeping monster. The people, supplies, and buildings in each Blister upset the delicate balance of the Martian surface, put too much weight on it. This set off underground quakes that became worse and worse. Finally, one of the quakes shook the monster so thoroughly that it awakened him, and he came to the surface again, huffing and puffing and breathing atomic flame. It seemed that he had an atomic pile in his stomach from the uranium he ate. His coming to the surface was the whole purpose of the picture. Graphic camera shots showed the monster attacking a Blister, tearing huge holes through which the air rushed out. Buildings toppled and fell grandly to the ground. People screamed and ran in panic in every direction. Inside the Blister, only the hero, who was beyond fear, didn't give way to despair. He realized the danger, gave orders to conserve the oxygen supply, and tackled the monster himself with a pair of huge blasters. There was a terrific atomic battle, that came across beautifully in Marticolor, and was the best thing about the entire picture. The hero was on the point of death, when by a final clever ruse he exploded the atomic pile in the monster's stomach, and the last surviving hypersaur of Mars came toppling down in a tremendous crash. After that, the hero and heroine clinched. Mel said, "I could write a better story than that with my brains tied behind my back." "I liked it," said Betty. "The hero was cute." "Cute? I never saw a dumber face in my life. I was hoping the monster would beat him." They got up to leave, and as they walked down the aisle, Mel couldn't help turning around to see if any one was following them. Betty noticed it. "You're still nervous, aren't you, Mel?" "Not really. It's just habit. How about some Martian cream soda in a Refreshment Dome, Betty?" "I like Martian cream soda, but they don't make it very well in these places. They use all kinds of substitutes. Mel, why don't you come over to the hotel and meet Uncle Gard? He really wants to see you." Mel wasn't anxious, but after a time he allowed himself to be persuaded. He had a plainclothesman along with him anyway, he thought. It wouldn't matter too much if Uncle Gard also joined the party. The hotel was an impressive ten-story structure, designed as much to awe tourists as to supply comfortable rooms for them. Mel walked in feeling somewhat ill at ease at being a guest in the home of Gard Closker. To his surprise, the man seemed to be making an unusual effort to be pleasant. "Well, my boy, how are you?" He shook Mel's reluctant hand with great heartiness. "I had a very good impression of you on the ship, and I wanted to see you again. I see that you're a performer in the circus now. Nice act you have. Clever dog, and well-trained kabror." "Thank you, sir," said Mel suspiciously. He wondered what was behind these effusive and obviously insincere compliments. "If I wanted to play Hakin and Bolam a dirty trick, the way they think I'm always doing, I'd hire you away from them. But I don't do such things." "I wouldn't leave them, Mr. Closker. They've been too nice to me." "Yes, yes, they're a hard-working pair. Have a tendency to run their acts down, though. Afraid their performers might ask for too much money." "Oh, no, sir—" "Come, come, Mel, I've been around a little more than you have. I'll bet they told you that you weren't good enough to go on in the second half. That's why they put you on early, before the people quite got settled in their seats. They did give you that line, didn't they?" "Well, I am new, sir. And to be honest about it, the other acts are a lot better than mine." "He's modest," said Betty. "Hmm, they managed to persuade you that you weren't much good, did they? As an old showowner, I want to warn you. Don't be so modest. It's dangerous. A performer has to believe in himself, or he can't go over with an audience. Watch your step, lad, or they'll be giving you an inferiority complex. However, Betty didn't bring you here to waste your time talking to an old fogy like me. Here, let me help you off with your jacket. It's a lot warmer in here than it is outside, and you might as well be comfortable. How would you like a genuine Martian cream soda, with no substitutes?" "Oh, don't bother, Mr. Closker," said Mel half-heartedly. "No bother at all, Mel. All I have to do is press a button." He had Mel's jacket now, and as Mel turned away, a card fluttered slowly to the floor. Mel stooped down to pick it up, and saw with surprise that it was a schedule card, giving the list of places the circus would play during the next season, along with dates. He must have taken it by mistake, he thought, absently putting it into his pocket instead of returning it to Hakin when they were working together. He'd have to give it back after he got home tonight. He returned it to his jacket pocket, and Closker himself hung the jacket up in a closet. "No mechanical servants for me," said the man jovially. "I can tend to my own wants. That's a joke, Son. All it means is that I can press my own buttons for food and drink." He pressed the button for the soda, and soon Mel and Betty were enjoying the icy, bubbly drink. It was good, Mel admitted. Better than anything he could have got at a Refreshment Dome. "Betty," said her uncle, "how about turning on some music?" "I was just going to, Uncle Gard." She pressed a button, and the strains of an orchestra came to them. "And now I suppose you young folks would like to be alone for a while, instead of listening to a talkative old fellow like me. If you'll both excuse me, I'll go back to work in my study." He made a smiling withdrawal, and Betty said, "He can be awfully sweet when he wants to be. And he did try to be helpful. I think you're all wrong about him, Mel." "He's taking a lot of trouble to be nice," admitted Mel. "I wonder why." "You're always looking for some hidden reason," said Betty indignantly. Mel remembered the attacks on the circus in the space ship coming to Mars, and opened his mouth to reply, then changed his mind. Betty wasn't going to convince him that Gard Closker was an angel, but neither was he going to persuade her that her uncle was a demon. They had both better save their breath for other things and avoid argument. The music was still going on, and Betty asked, "Do you dance? I suppose if you've always lived on Earth, you don't. Earth people have heavy feet." "I never had a chance to learn," admitted Mel. "Do you want me to teach you? Come on. Dancing's a lot of fun on Mars." Mel stepped close to her and put his right arm around her. Betty showed him a simple step, and he tried to follow. He felt awkward at first, but Betty wasn't self-conscious at all, and after a while he began really to enjoy himself. He learned the simple steps she first showed him readily enough, and Betty was so light and graceful that he had no difficulty in leading her. In fact, the chief trouble was that he himself was almost as light as she was. "How do you keep close to the floor?" he demanded. "I'm always bouncing off." "That's the low gravity again. You just have to learn to glide, except when you do the Martian Stomp. That calls for a lot of jumping. Let me show you how it goes." The Martian Stomp, Mel found, was more of an athletic contest than a dance. You not only leaped and hopped around, you bounced off the walls, and if you were really ambitious, you turned your partner upside down and did somersaults yourself. It was fun, and to Mel, who had been practicing somersaults for weeks now, easy enough. But most adults found it undignified. They also found the bouncing off the walls rather noisy and nerve-wracking, not to say bad for the walls. Gard Closker came in and began, "What on Mars is going on here?" "I'm just teaching Mel the Martian Stomp, Uncle Gard," said Betty. "Isn't that a rather noisy dance for this time of night?" He looked at his watch. "Hmm, I don't want to hurry you, my boy, but it is after midnight, local time. And we have to get up in the morning even on Mars, you know." Mel could take a hint, especially when it was as strong as this one. He said, "I guess I'd better be going." "Yes, I think we all of us need plenty of rest. An acrobat should get plenty of sleep." "I guess you're right, Mr. Closker. Well, good night, Betty. Good night, Mr. Closker." Mel started to move toward the door, but Betty said, "Don't forget your jacket." "That's right, it's chilly outside." He put it on, and said, "Good-bye," all over again. Mr. Closker watched him go, and this time Mel could find no reason to turn back. In the corridor outside he practiced the quieter of the steps Betty had taught him. Dancing was something you could enjoy, he thought. If you were a trained athlete—as he was now—it was nothing at all to pick it up. A man came around a bend in the corridor and stared at him curiously, as if he thought Mel might be crazy. Mel stopped dancing, and hurried on. Outside the hotel, he looked around for his shadow. Once more the streets were deserted, and there was no one in sight but a middle-aged woman plodding slowly down the opposite side of the street. Mel turned toward the direction of the circus, and began to walk rapidly. He kept away from the buildings themselves, hugging the edges of the sidewalks as much as possible, just in case any one tried to jump at him from around a corner. Now that he didn't have a shadow, it struck him that Lieutenant Blazer was being awfully careless, letting him travel around alone. Why, some one might try to murder him! He looked back. Still nobody around. Unless you counted that middle-aged woman, who was still a short distance behind him. That, when you came to think of it, was odd. She didn't seem to be moving fast, and he had been keeping up a rapid pace, and yet he hadn't lost her. Could it be—? And then it struck him. It not only could be, it was! This was the shadow that Lieutenant Blazer had put on him. Not a plainclothes man, but a plainclothes woman. That was why the Lieutenant had been so positive that Mel wouldn't notice a man following him. Mel had spent the evening with Betty accompanied by a chaperone. "I'm blind," he groaned to himself. "I can't even see what's going on under my eyes." Blind, and absent-minded too. Take that business of the schedule he had put in his pocket. Why, he hadn't realized he was taking it at all. He must have put it away mechanically— Wait a minute, now, he caught himself. That's impossible. I remember now that I had my jacket off when I was helping Hakin. And I'm sure that I didn't deliberately take the schedule along when I left the desk, and stick it away in a pocket. He frowned. Come to think of it, he thought, I didn't get a good look at that schedule when it dropped to the floor. Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe it wasn't what I thought it was. He put his hand in his right-hand pocket and groped for the schedule card. There was no card. Then he began to search through the other pockets. Still no card. I couldn't have dropped it out again, he thought. I put it right in here, and it still ought to be here. Unless Unless, of course, some one had taken it out. And who could have taken it but Gard Closker? So that, thought Mel bitterly, is why he invited me in the first place and was so friendly. That's what he had in mind all the time. That's why he talked to me and tried to get information from me, that's why he was so worried about my comfort, and got me to take my jacket off. Come to think of it, he didn't take his own off. No question about it, Closker had the schedule now. And it wouldn't do any good to go back and ask him about it. I'd look like a fool, Mel told himself, ringing his bell so late after midnight to say I lost something and wanted it back. I can imagine what he'd say to that. He'd tell me blandly that he didn't know anything about it, he'd wonder why I came back in the middle of the night to ask about it. And even if he arranged to have me find it on the floor, he'd have copied it over by this time, he'd know what Hakin and Bolam planned to do. CHAPTER 12 UNDER THE MARTIAN SKY HE FINISHED the rest of his walk in gloom. He had certainly made a fine mess of things. The first thing he did when he reached the circus was to seek Rover. The animal was up now, and walking about. Mel said, "Easy, boy," and scratched the dog behind the ears. Rover stood up, and put his paws on Mel's chest. The dog's eyes were bright and inquisitive, and if not for the bandage across his chest, you wouldn't have thought he was wounded at all. "I'll be back in a minute, Rover," said Mel, giving him a final pat. "Got to see Hakin and Bolam now." The two men were still up, and they greeted Mel with inquiring eyes. "Have a good time?" asked Bolam. "Fine, until I stopped to think. Closker made a fool of me." "Indeed? I did not think that was possible, O Brilliant One," said Hakin. "It's possible, all right," said Mel dejectedly. "No trouble at all. I had a schedule card on me, listing the places you planned to play during next season's tour, and the dates. Somehow I seem to have lost it in Closker's place." "Most unfortunate," said Hakin, looking not at all disturbed. "He invited you to his hotel rooms?" asked Bolam. "Yes, I think he wanted information. And he got more than he had a right to expect. I guess he must be laughing up his sleeve at what an idiot I am, right now." "Do not distress yourself, O Doleful One," said Hakin. He still looked much calmer than Mel had expected him to be. "The Crooked One's sleeve will not know laughter for long. And the fault is not yours." "We can always change our schedule," observed Bolam. "If necessary." "After the trouble you've gone to in working this one out?" Mel shook his head. "No, don't try to make me feel good. I let Closker make a monkey out of me. The only thing I can't understand is how that schedule card got into my pocket in the first place. I don't remember putting it there. I just can't figure out—I can't understand—" "It is not polite to interrupt any one, O Puzzled One," said Hakin. "Even one's self." "Wait a minute," said Mel slowly. "Maybe I can understand. Could you possibly have put that schedule in my pocket, Hakin?" "All things are possible, O Ponderer of the Mysteries of Nature." "Around this circus they seem to be. You put it in my pocket hoping that he'd steal it. Isn't that so?" "You wrong us, Mel," said Bolam. "We don't hope anybody will ever do any stealing." "Let's say you expected him to steal it. So you wrote out a fake schedule—" Mel stared at the two partners. "Say, it's beginning to look as if Closker isn't the only one around here who has funny ideas about ethics." "Our ethics are beyond dispute, O Pure-Thinking One," Hakin told him. "If Closker is an honest man who has no idea of purloining what belongs to others, he will lose nothing. He will make out his own schedule as best he can without paying any attention to ours. If, however, he is a thief who seeks to use the property that belongs to us, we have arranged to make him suffer for his knavishness." Bolam said, "That's simple justice, Mel." "It may be justice," admitted Mel. "But it isn't so simple. Not to me it isn't. You expect him to make out his own schedule in such a way that he falls into a trap you've set. I suppose you've juggled the dates a bit." "You suppose correctly, O Shrewd One," smiled Hakin. "On the schedule that Closker has in his possession we have set back all the dates approximately one month. And we have hired the circus grounds in each locality not in our own name, but in that of some dummy company which Closker will not recognize as ours. Thus, if he investigates, he will think that we have not hired the grounds at all. He will ascribe this to our carelessness, to the looseness of our organization, which he supposes is much inferior to his. Perhaps he will try to arrange his circus to play each engagement two weeks before he thinks ours will arrive. In that way, he will hope to attract audiences until every one is tired of circus-going, so that when we give our own performances they will play to empty houses. "Think how chagrined he will be to discover that we play each engagement not two weeks later, but two weeks before him! Think how mortified he will be, O Ethical One, to find that it is we who have skimmed the cream of the audiences, instead of he! Think how enraged he will be to learn that it is he who will show great losses for the season, and not we!" Mel thought, and he didn't altogether like his thoughts. He said, "I still don't like the idea of the way you used me and Betty to arrange this." "We used Closker's own greed and trickiness," said Bolam. "If not through you, we'd have managed to do it some other way. We owed him something for the dirty work his men tried on board the ship." "I'll agree to that," admitted Mel. "And do not forget, O Dubious One, that the outcome depends on his own honesty and on that alone. If he does not try to make use of our property, then our plan fails." Slowly, and somewhat reluctantly, Mel admitted to himself that the rubber man was right. He didn't like being in the middle of a deal like this. But if Closker got caught, it would be that gentleman's own fault. As for Betty—well, Mel hoped that Closker would be too mortified when he eventually found himself victimized to tell her about it. The story would reflect no credit on himself. Whatever happened, however, Mel knew that when next season rolled around and Closker found himself trailing the rival circus, instead of just preceding it, the man would have no more use for him. He went back to his room to find Rover waiting for him. The dog didn't seem at all sleepy, and began to pace restlessly back and forth. "I know how you feel, Rover," said Mel. "But you'd still better take it easy. Lie down. Tomorrow maybe you can go for a walk." The promise seemed to satisfy Rover, and he lay down. Mel's own thoughts were in a whirl, but he was tired, and presently he too lay down. He fell asleep at once. The next day, as he had promised, he took the dog for a walk. There was no sign of the middle-aged woman who had followed him the night before, and for a moment Mel wondered if perhaps Lieutenant Blazer had called off his shadow. It wasn't likely, he decided. The Lieutenant hadn't known that Rover would be sufficiently recovered to go with him. Then the answer struck him, and once more he felt ashamed of his own stupidity. The police didn't use the same shadow all the time. That would put his enemies on guard. Now, in all probability, they had a man trailing him, later there would be another man, and so on. The way Rover walked reminded Mel that bright as the animal was, he was all dog. Mel had been interested in strange sights, and after he had seen the few that the colony seemed to have, he had rather lost interest. Rover, however, was even more interested in smells than in sights. Two buildings might look alike, but one sniff, and he knew how really different they were inside. Everything he saw fascinated him. A couple of the six-legged "sheep" that foraged on the outside came close to the walls, and Rover was interested in them too. Mel said, "Your ancestors were sheep-dogs, Rover, but these beasts don't need to be herded. As far as they're concerned, you're out of a job. Besides, you couldn't breathe out there where they are. You'd need a space suit." That set him to wondering. Did they have space suits for dogs? At the next airlock, set into the Blister walls, he stopped to ask. He found that there was a small concession next to each airlock, and to his surprise, the man who ran it, a small alert individual in his thirties, said, "We don't have space suits for animals because there isn't enough demand for them. But the dog doesn't really need a whole suit, not if you don't intend to stay out with him for more than a short time. He can get by with just a helmet to supply oxygen, and a sort of jacket to apply pressure over the upper part of his body. You want an outfit for him?" "Not right now," said Mel. The dog was still recovering from his wound, and it would be subjecting him to needless risk to take him outdoors where the low pressure would cause expansion of the surface blood vessels. "Maybe in a day or two, though." "You come back right here, and I'll fix both of you up. Space suits for human beings, jackets and helmets for man and beast. Oxygen tanks, special appliances for cooking in the open, picnic food, everything. You name it, and we got it. And nobody can beat my prices." "Thanks a lot," said Mel evasively. "I'll remember about you. Which airlock is this?" "York airlock. Named after a place on Earth." "I've heard of it," said Mel, and made his escape. The Martians might have low-pressure air, but they didn't, he thought, lack high-pressure salesmanship. During the next couple of days, he helped around the circus, doing whatever Hakin and Bolam couldn't find time to do, and making himself generally useful. He tried to call Betty a couple of times, but she wasn't home, and he left no message with the hotel clerk. He didn't want Gard Closker to know that he was calling. Rover was improving from day to day, and although he still wore a bandage on his chest, it was a much smaller and less impressive looking one than the vet had first put on him. Mel wasn't ready, however, to have the dog go on in their act again, not until Rover was entirely healed. He was sure that some one assigned by Lieutenant Blazer was still trailing him, but he generally stayed close to the circus grounds, and he found it impossible to tell who the man or woman was. There was no direct word from the Lieutenant, and he wondered how the investigation of the character called "Little Jupe" was coming along. He had an idea that if there had been anything positive to report, the Lieutenant would have called him by now. He had just made his third phone call to Betty, to find that she was not home, and in desperation, much as he disliked to do so, he had left his name with the hotel clerk. Just as he returned to the circus, an envelope fell through the mail slit into his room. "Who'd be writing to me?" he asked himself. And then a look at the address gave the answer. It was in a girl's handwriting, and he knew it was from Betty, although, somehow, he hadn't associated her with quite such a florid script. "Dear Mel," she wrote, "Uncle Gard is busy with his circus, and I've got nothing to do tomorrow afternoon. I mean this afternoon, because by the time you get this little note it'll be a day later. How about putting on space suits and seeing what Mars is like outside? I've never been out and I'd love to go. Meet me at York Airlock at four. If I'm a little late, you can put on your suit and go outside, and wait for me there. I'll join you in a few minutes. Ever yours, Betty." Mel read the letter quickly, then read it again, more slowly this time. What did she mean by, "Ever yours"? Nothing much, he decided. It was just a way of ending a letter, like "Yours truly," or "Yours sincerely." It didn't mean that she was his. As for paying a visit to the fields outside, that wasn't a bad idea, he thought. This time he'd take Rover with him and Betty, and if there was anybody following, they'd make a nice little party of four. The next day, at four, he and Rover were at the York Airlock. Mel was wearing a suit of warm clothes and carrying a pair of warm gloves, in readiness for the cold outside. Betty, as she had warned him might happen, wasn't there. Well, he might as well wait outside, as she had suggested. The man he had spoken with the other day wasn't there. Instead, a thin sallow-looking individual said, "Anything I can do for you, Mister?" "Where's the fellow who was here the other day?" "Taking the afternoon off. I can take care of you." "I don't suppose it makes any difference. I want space helmets and jackets for myself and the dog." "I've got just the right thing for you." The man dragged out a pair of helmets, one for him and one for Rover. The one for Rover looked hardly more weird than his own. "Try these on for size." He began to put on his own awkwardly, and the man helped him and showed him how to adjust the elastic flaps that made an air-tight seal. There was a built-in two-way radio, easily controlled by a pair of buttons on a switch attached to his belt. The radio had direction and wave-length selectors, so that if he were in the midst of a group, he could tune in on the single person he wanted to hear. Over his chest Mel put on a fibrous plastic jacket that would maintain a fair amount of pressure. Through the jacket he could barely feel the weight of a pair of small oxygen tanks, which were light and easy to carry under Martian conditions. "Enough oxygen for five hours," the man assured him, speaking into a radio of his own. "And you oughtn't to stay out any longer than three hours in a space helmet. Especially if it's the first time you've used one. When the oxygen in one tank is almost used up, and you have trouble breathing, you switch to the other with this valve. Here, let me show you." Mel switched back and forth from one tank to the other. As the man said, it was no trouble at all. Mel asked, "Are they full?" "Both of them are full. They have to be, by Martian regulations. Wait a minute, I'll give you a gauge reading. See that? New tanks, just filled. You'll have time to find a lot of jewels." "Jewels?" "Crystallized parts of rocks. Tourists are always picking them up. Most of them aren't worth much, but once in a while you come across one that's worth a fortune. I know one fellow who found a crystal that paid the entire cost of his trip to Mars." "Hope I'm as lucky as that." "You might be. Got the hang of using the tanks?" "It doesn't seem to be hard," said Mel. "It isn't. But you'd better take the outfit off and put it on again all by yourself. Just to make sure you know how to use it." Mel took the helmet off. But he didn't put it right back on again. First he examined it, and looked over the oxygen tanks. These were easily removable, and the entire tops, including the valve connections, could be screwed off. Despite that, when he tested them for leaks, he found that they were oxygen-tight. He put on the helmet again. It was easy enough to do. Then he adjusted Rover's helmet and jacket. The dog seemed a little wary of the strange things on his head and chest, but when Mel told him it was all right, he submitted. He seemed to have no trouble breathing inside the helmet. After he had paid the rental fee for helmets and jackets, Mel looked around, but there was still no sign of Betty. "Might as well go outside," he thought. "Now that Rover and I have our helmets on, there's no need for us to stay in an oxygen-rich atmosphere." The guard let him and Rover into the airlock. Five minutes in the medium-pressure chamber, five in the low-pressure, and then, for the first time, Mel found himself on the open ground of Mars. He had a sense of freedom and adventure—and yet it didn't really feel any different. He was breathing through the helmet, as he had been breathing for the last quarter hour. His skin, where the special jacket didn't cover it, felt dry and stretched, and his fingers seemed a bit stiff, as if they were swollen inside the gloves. Through the warm clothes he could feel the coldness of the thin air, and was glad he had come so well prepared. Rover, of course, had his fur. He hoped that this was enough to keep the dog warm. The sun was bright, the sky dark, the shadows sharp, all as he had seen them before. He looked in every direction, to get his bearings. There were no space-suited men in sight, no six-legged animals. He and Rover were the only living creatures in the neighborhood outside the Blister. He walked away from the wall of the Blister, and Rover followed at his heels. Poor Rover, he thought. He hoped again that the dog's thick fur would be protection enough from the cold. What worried him more than that, however, was the thought that Rover, like all dogs, lived more by his sense of smell than by sight. And next in importance to smell, was the world of sound. Here the helmet shut him off from all the odors and sounds of this strange world. Although, come to think of it, as far as sound was concerned, the thin air didn't carry it too well. Yes, Rover was pretty much isolated. He couldn't smell the six-legged "sheep," if any were to come around, or the Martian plants, or the soil itself. He must feel much as Mel would feel if he were blind. Mel reached down and turned the dog's radio on. "Can you hear me, Rover?" he asked. The dog looked at him. "I think you can. But just to be sure—if you hear me, sit down." The dog sat down, and Mel had a feeling of relief. They weren't quite as isolated from each other as he had feared. They were still close to the wall of the Blister, and the ground here was flat and uninteresting. No harm in going farther out, thought Mel. If Betty showed up, she'd know he was out here, and he would still be in easy view of her. They reached a row of cabbage-like plants, and Mel bent down for a closer look. The leaves were large and blue-green, and they seemed mottled with brown. To Mel they looked as unappetizing as wilted spinach. Between the plants, there was a slight sprinkling of gray iron dust on the red-brown soil. A botanist might have spent a profitable hour or two examining the plants. But Mel was no botanist, and anything that looked like spinach bored him. He moved on. A little further out they saw one of the six-legged beasts. The thing gazed at them calmly, and then got out of their way. Rover, who under different conditions would have given expression to his canine instincts and chased after the animal, made no move toward it. A dog couldn't be very much interested in any creature he couldn't smell. And with that helmet on, he certainly couldn't do any biting. Mel looked back to see if Betty had arrived and come out after him. She hadn't, and he shook his head. Girls, he thought, were always late. But he hadn't expected her to be that late. Up ahead there was some sort of sharply rising hill that looked interesting. It had better be interesting, he thought. Maybe it would have been different if Betty had been along to talk to, but he was finding his little voyage of exploration something of a disappointment. The Martian landscape was a monotonous one. Almost nothing moved in it. No trees, no rivers, no small animals like rabbits or squirrels, no birds, no insects. Just the imitation cabbages motionless in the windless air, and the placid imitation sheep. The only things that did move slowly appeared to be the endless shadows cast by the sun, staring down at them like a bright eye out of the darkness. That hill, though, seemed as if it might be worth investigating. The peak glittered in the Martian sunlight, and at least a thin layer of the surface must be transparent and glasslike, for it seemed to change color as he approached it, and his eyes caught the light reflected from it at a slightly different angle. It was steep, but the low gravity made it easy to climb for both him and the dog. And the peak, which rose several hundred feet into the air, was as he had suspected, covered with a vitreous layer. As if, he imagined, it had been struck by lightning and the surface molten by the heat. Only, there was no lightning on Mars. No clouds, no rain, no thunder, no lightning. Not at any rate for the last million years or so. In a couple of places, the glassy layer seemed to have crystallized. He broke off one gleaming fragment that was shaped like a hexagonal prism. Could this be one of those jewels the fellow had talked about? Chances were that anything this close to the Blister had been thoroughly investigated. Still, you never could tell, and there was just a faint possibility that this was one of the crystals that were considered jewels and brought high prices. He put the gleaming prism in his pocket. Still no sign of Betty. Something must have happened to her, he thought. Maybe an accident. Maybe her uncle had found out what she meant to do, and had stopped her. There were a dozen things that might have delayed her. There was another hill farther on, a small one, with a very sharp peak. There might be more crystals. He said, "Come on, Rover," and advanced toward it. It took him longer to reach it than he had thought it would. The hill wasn't quite as small as it had seemed, and it was much farther away. This clear Martian air was extremely deceptive. He looked back, and was startled to see how small the Blister had become. He could see all of it from one end to the other, except the side which lay in deep shadow, and he realized how much it deserved its unflattering name. It was no more than a shiny swelling, a gleaming irritation, of the great red and green plain. It seemed out of place on the rough skin of Mars. And he would be unable to reach it in less than a half hour. Now that he was here, he thought, he might as well look at the hill before turning back. It was much like the first hill, despite the difference in size, and the peak was also vitrified. But there were no crystals to be picked up. Other tourists, he realized, must have been here before him, and collected all the souvenirs worth taking. For the first time, as he bent over, looking for the crystals which weren't there, he became aware of the fact that wearing the helmet was a nuisance. It was beginning to be hard to breathe. He had to fight a little to draw the air into his lungs. It struck him that he had been a bit reckless to go so far away from the Blister. He felt the perspiration starting on his forehead. That was another source of discomfort, and he knew that in a minute or two his lenses would start fogging. Something was wrong, and he couldn't think what. For a moment he entertained the idea of holding his breath and removing the helmet. The perspiration would evaporate in a few seconds and leave his face just as cold and dry as the rest of his body exposed to the thin atmosphere. He shook his head. I must be crazy, he told himself. That would just be a way of committing suicide. Whatever else I do, I leave that helmet on out here. Never mind how I feel. So long as I continue to breathe out of that oxygen tank, I'm safe. All the same, it isn't doing me much good. I'm still having trouble catching my breath. Maybe—maybe the oxygen in one tank is getting used up. It shouldn't be. According to what the man said, I should have a large supply left. Still, accidents happen, although they shouldn't, and it won't hurt to switch tanks. He reached in front with a gloved hand, and turned the valve that shifted from one tank to the other. Then he choked. Black spots danced before his eyes, and inside the helmet he was almost sick before he could switch back to the first tank. The second tank was completely empty. CHAPTER 13 THE POLICE INVESTIGATE FOR a few seconds he gasped for breath. Then he caught himself. Easy, Mel, he said to himself. Take it easy. You won't last more than another minute or two if you start using your oxygen up so fast. Take it easy, relax, breathe slowly. Make it stretch. How much of a supply do you have left? Enough for five minutes? Ten? You don't know, but one thing's sure, there isn't enough to let you reach the Blister, not by a long shot. But if you walk slowly, and take shallow breaths, and don't let yourself get panicky— And call for help. That's what you ought to do. You've got a radio, you can let them know what happened. Call for help, and they'll come out and get you. How do you call for help? What's the proper way? You just don't yell, "Help, I'm choking! I need oxygen!" You talk in a calm voice: "Calling York Airlock. Mel Oliver calling York Airlock. Oxygen low. Cannot reach Blister in time. Oxygen low, please send tank. Oxygen low—" And you just don't talk. You walk toward the Blister. You keep walking even though every movement, every step sends a knife stabbing through your tortured lungs. You walk slowly, so as not to use up too much of the little oxygen left in the air you've breathed over and over, and you keep talking in a steady voice, and you try to take shallow breaths. Your view lenses are fogging up now, and you can't see through them as you stumble forward, but you get the reflection of the sun from the Blister walls, so that you know you're going in the right direction. You may not reach safety, but at least you can keep heading for the patch of brightness where it lies. Odd, though, there's no answer to your call for help. Somewhere, some one should be listening in. The guards at the Airlock, for instance, know that I went out here with Rover. Wouldn't they tune in once in a while, just to find out what's happening to me? Just to find out if there's any kind of message? Aren't there other people out here who'd like to tune in and hear a human voice? Well, maybe it is odd. Maybe my radio just doesn't carry very far. But that isn't any odder than the fact that I'm short of oxygen in the first place. I ought to have a big supply in reserve. With two tanks— Something touched his leg. Rover, of course. I've been forgetting about him. Rover has two tanks also. Maybe I could use one of his. The tanks are easy enough to switch around. He couldn't see through the fogged lenses, so he felt for the dog. Another strange thing, he thought. Rover wasn't walking, Rover was crouching on the ground. Rover had difficulty walking too. Rover— Now he knew what he should have known before, at once. This was no accident. The dog's oxygen supply was short too. The man at the Airlock concession had deliberately planned this, had deliberately switched oxygen tanks on them, while Mel was practicing putting on the helmet. He had deliberately sent them out to die. Mel sat down suddenly on the cold dry ground. Martian gravity might be low, but his body suddenly felt like lead. This was the end, he thought. It was his fault, he should never have left the Blister, he should never have taken the dog with him out here. Betty hadn't shown up because that letter was not from Betty at all. It was a trap, intended to lure him out here where he'd be helpless. Whoever was trying to get rid of him had given up direct attempts at killing with a gun and used a slightly more subtle method. He should have known it, when the handwriting seemed so oddly unlike Betty. But he had been too stupid to suspect. He took his right glove off, and ran his hand over Rover's fur, the smooth soft fur that felt so pleasantly warm after the coldness of the ground. He could feel the dog's body shaking, as if the dog were panting inside his helmet. Neither of them could possibly last much longer. His hand dropped off the dog's body, trailed on the ice-cold ground again. The Martian ground, red-brown with a powdery layer of gray iron particles as the silently working bacteria and plants slowly released its oxygen into the thin air He caught himself. Oxygen. Where did the supply in the tanks come from in the first place? From the soil, of course, released in exactly the same way. The oxygen in the soil was inexhaustible. If he could release that He began to work feverishly. The gloves were in his way, and he discarded both of them. He started on the spare oxygen tank, the empty one. It wasn't easy, especially as his hands soon began to feel frozen, but he managed to unscrew the top section. Then he began to fill the tank itself, with soil, mixing in the top layer, to distribute the bacteria through the mass, and piling in handfuls of the cold red-brown dirt that lay just beneath the surface. He worked fast, his numb hands trembling, the dirt spilling out of them. When he had the tank almost completely full, he screwed the top on again. But he didn't switch the tank into the feed line. It was too soon for that. He had to give the bacteria in the soil a chance to get to work, to build up a pressure of oxygen that he might breathe. When he was finished with his own tank, he filled one of Rover's the same way. He and the dog would both continue, for as long as possible, to use the tanks they had been using. As long as possible. That wouldn't be long. By this time the dog was lying on the ground unable to move, and Mel sat alongside him, knowing what he was doing, but almost forgetting why he was doing it. He remembered only that he mustn't switch over until he felt himself on the verge of blacking out. With the dog's tank loaded and back in place, Mel lay down. Lying prone, he rested as much as he could, keeping his oxygen needs to a minimum, stretching the limited supply in his present tank to the utmost. And at the same time, the warmth of his body would, he hoped, raise the temperature of the soil in the tank, at least where it was in contact with the wall, by a degree or so, speed up the evolution of oxygen by the trifle that might spell the difference between life and death. He was just sinking into a pleasant painless sleep when he realized that this was the moment he had been waiting for. He switched tanks, and for a second was afraid to try to breathe. Then he began to fill his lungs. There was something to fill them with. Not as much oxygen as would have made him forget his need of it, but enough to keep him alive. Painfully alive. It had been much pleasanter a few seconds before. But if pain was the penalty for living, he was willing to pay it. He reached over and switched to the dirt-filled tank on Rover's back. In a few minutes they'd start to walk again. Five minutes later they were moving forward. Slowly the perspiration inside the helmet evaporated, slowly the fogged lenses cleared. But Mel knew that he had better not move too fast. It was another hour before he and Rover reached the Blister airlock. As he had expected, the man at the concession, the one who had rented them their helmets, was no longer there. He had probably gone to whoever had hired him, to report a mission of murder successfully accomplished. A little while later, Mel was talking to Lieutenant Blazer. The Lieutenant's face was red, and he spoke with obvious anger. "They made a fool of my man that time. Yes, Mel, you weren't the only one who failed to use his head. I had a man following you. But he didn't think of going out after you in a helmet of his own. His job, he said, was to see if any thugs were on your trail, and obviously, when you left the Blister, there weren't any. He too was thinking of guns and obvious violence. He didn't suspect the man at the concession." "You ought to be able to pick that fellow up," said Mel. "I'll do my best, but it won't be easy. The man who really works there—the one you talked to the other day—was found knocked out and tied up. He had been hidden away in the basement of a nearby building. He isn't in a condition to give us much information. The other man, the one who sent you out, isn't around. Once you went outside, he disappeared in a hurry." "I don't understand it," said Mel. "He took so much trouble to make sure that I knew how to operate the helmets. He even had me practice taking mine off and putting it back on again." "Just winning your confidence," grunted the Lieutenant. "He knew you'd be a little nervous, and he wanted to be sure you wouldn't change your mind about going out. As you later suspected, he probably switched oxygen tanks on you when he got you to practice. You wouldn't be able to give a description of him, would you." Mel said regretfully, "I didn't get a good look at him. All that I can tell you is that he was thin and sallow. I was more interested in getting the helmet on right than in seeing what he was like. Besides, I think I was excited about going out, and maybe finding some jewels. He told me some of them were worth a fortune." "Just another way of making sure you spent plenty of time outside. Those so-called jewels are a dime a dozen on Mars." "I didn't know. Between thinking about the jewels, and practicing with the helmet, and wondering when Betty would get there, I didn't pay too much attention to him. But I don't think he looked like a crook." "If you could tell crooks by looking at them, this would be a lot simpler world. Anyway, the fact is that you're not much help." "I'm sorry, I didn't suspect anything wrong." Mel still felt that he had been inexcusably careless, and he was anxious to change the subject. "By the way, Lieutenant, did you investigate to see whether you could find that fellow called, 'Little Jupe'?" "The police investigated in Blister Seven," said Lieutenant Blazer. "They were lucky enough to get on his trail. Even located the house where he lived." "But did they get him?" The Lieutenant shook his head. "They sent a couple of men to pick him up. Just as the men got to the room where he lived, there was an explosion, and the next thing they knew, the house was on fire. The fire department had unexpected trouble in putting the flames out, and when things had cooled down a little, it turned out that Little Jupe was gone. At least they found no trace of his body." "It looks as if he had been expecting the police, Lieutenant." "Sure. The trouble with modern science is that everybody can take advantage of it. Even a crook. He had fixed up some sort of radio arrangement to warn him, and a remote control device to touch off the explosion. He was way ahead of us." Not so much ahead, thought Mel, as he walked slowly back to the circus. The man himself, whoever he was, had escaped. But his plans had failed. And their failure had alerted the police and taught Mel himself a few things. By no means as much as he should have learned, he admitted ruefully to himself. But he had lost some of the ignorance which had previously made him such an inviting victim. When they reached the circus, he had the vet examine Rover again to make sure that the dog, barely recovered from his injuries, had not been harmed by his experience outside. The man went over Rover's body slowly, using an electronic stethoscope to check the dog's heartbeat, and a photometric chromogram to give a quick picture of his blood chemistry. At the end he gave the dog a pat and said, "Nothing wrong. You have a pretty healthy animal here, Mel." "Think he can get back into the act we've been doing, Doc?" "I don't see why not. It isn't much of an act, as most of our acts go." "Thanks, Doc," said Mel dryly. "I'm beginning to realize that." Bolam and Hakin listened with some concern to the story of this latest escape. When Mel had finished, Hakin said, "You have been fortunate indeed to remain among the living, O Quick-Thinking One. And you will continue to need good fortune. I am certain that there will be yet other attempts." "Perhaps we can nip them in the bud," said Bolam thoughtfully. "One fact is clear. Now that Rover's able to guard you again, and the police have a man protecting you, your enemy isn't going to send ordinary criminals against you. He'll obviously have to rely on men who can size up a situation and adapt themselves. For one thing, your enemy has learned about your friendship with Betty. He's taken advantage of that once, and he may try to do so again. You'll have to be on guard against any messages that seem to come from her." Mel nodded. "I won't be fooled that way again." "For another thing," went on Bolam, "most of your time from now on is going to be spent around the circus, and it's safe to assume that your mysterious ill-wisher has taken the trouble to learn all he can about the circus routine. He probably knows a great deal about us, from the deliveries of supplies to the arrangements we make for selling tickets. We'll have to set up a guard system. I think that Lieutenant Blazer will cooperate with us there." "An excellent thought, O Mighty Partner," said Hakin. "It has been all too easy for strangers to slip into our midst in the guise of members of our crew. From now on, if that Despicable One, Gard Closker, attempts to send in spies, his men will be caught." "I don't think Closker will try anything," said Bolam. "He thinks he already knows enough about us to hit us hard next season. He'll probably lie low and try to give us the impression that he's resigned to our being successful. It's Mel's safety that I'm worried about. And that brings up something else. Your act is out, Mel." "Oh, no!" protested Mel. "I'm perfectly all right, and Rover is fine too. The vet said we could go on any time." "Your health is in danger from another source than muscular strain. Think of it this way, Mel. We've been drawing full houses, a little more than four thousand people at each performance. What's to prevent a would-be murderer from slipping in here and trying to kill you during your act? We can stop anybody who tries to get to the dressing rooms, but we can't investigate every one who buys a ticket. And during the performance, the eyes of the spectators are on the arena, not on an individual sitting in their midst. It would be possible to shoot you, get rid of the gun, and escape during the panic that followed. Maybe it would be a little daring, but it could work. I say again that your act is out." Mel said sadly, "If you feel that way, Bolam, I guess it is. But I was counting on getting back and really earning my salary. This way I feel useless." Hakin grinned. "It is not the desire to be of help, but the itch to be applauded which has seized him," he said. "But be of good cheer, O Hammy One. Once this danger is past, you will display your talents to many a Martian audience." "Once it's past," repeated Mel. "The trouble is, we don't have any idea how to put an end to it." "John Armstrong is connected with it," said Bolam. "And soon we move our show to Blister Seven, to give performances there. You'll visit Armstrong and find out what's wrong." "The police visited him," said Mel, "and they didn't learn anything against him. No, Bolam, I think you're wrong. John Armstrong is my friend, even though he's an absentminded one and doesn't really show his friendship. I told you that I remember him being nice to me when I was a kid, and—" His voice trailed off. Hakin said, "What is wrong, O Reminiscent One?" "Oh, nothing. I just thought of something he said to me. Maybe it would be a good idea to pay him a visit after all." Hakin and Bolam exchanged glances. "What did he say to you, Mel?" asked Bolam. "Something about not liking dogs. I'll have to bring Rover to see him." The big dog perked up his ears. There was an important job ahead of him, although neither he nor Mel knew yet exactly what it would be. CHAPTER 14 ROVER UNMASKS AN ENEMY THE next two weeks passed, so far as Mel knew, without any further attempt on his life. The police guarded the circus carefully, and Rover never left Mel's side. Once Mel spoke to Betty on the visor screen. Her uncle was getting ready to leave Marsopolis, and Betty would have to go with him. Mel was sorry that he wouldn't have another chance to see her, but in a way he was glad too. The thought had occurred to him that next time his mysterious enemy might not only try to get at him through Betty, but might actually harm her. It would be better for her to be out of the way until this business was settled. So he thought it best not to alarm her. He didn't even tell her that her name had been used to lure him into a trap. Mel hoped that they would meet again soon, but the time and place were vague and uncertain. Meanwhile, it was annoying not to be allowed to act for an audience. Hakin was right, thought Mel ruefully, once you had tasted applause you were like all the other hams, incurably infected with the desire to enjoy more of it. But behind the scenes Mel practiced and rehearsed faithfully, preparing a new act, and keeping in trim. They ended their run in Marsopolis, and right after the performance one evening, packed up and took a jet ship for Blister Seven. There were many things to be done, and they spent the entire day of arrival in getting ready for the evening's opening performance on the new site. Once more the circus acts went on without Mel and Rover. But it wouldn't be long now before he was acting again, thought Mel. Just a little while, and everything would be straightened out. The following morning, Mel looked up John Armstrong's address. When Bolam learned what he was doing, the strong man stared at Hakin, and the latter nodded. "We have an hour's free time, O Powerful One. Let us accompany our friend." "All right with me," said Bolam. And the three of them, along with Rover, got into an electrically driven cab and went off to pay John Armstrong a visit. Armstrong's home was near the end of the Blister Seven suburb farthest away from the circus. It was a small two-story house, with a larger separate annex, the latter including the laboratory in which Armstrong was supposed to do his research. Hakin ordered the driver to take the cab some distance past the house before letting them out. "If Armstrong is indeed the Criminal One, then we must use caution. We must not let him see that we expect trouble and are prepared for it." "Do you think he knows we're coming?" asked Mel. "It is unlikely, unless he has had you followed here too. And I have seen no signs of that, O Victimized One. Most probably he does not expect us to come to him, and we shall have the advantage of surprise." "I don't know what you expect to find," said Mel. "The police didn't find anything." "We shall not follow the methods of the police. And we shall have help from Rover." "I'll walk over to the house first with Mel," said Bolam. "You follow, Hakin. You shouldn't have any trouble getting to the roof." "There will be no trouble," agreed Hakin. Mel knew that all the rubber man had to do was stretch his arms to a window ledge high up, draw himself back, and snap his body upward. "You'll use your own judgment about when to interfere in the conversation we're having with Armstrong." "In case there is no trouble, I shall not interfere at all. But I do not think it will be possible to avoid trouble." "How about Rover?" asked Mel. "When does he come in?" "We'd best keep him as a surprise for Armstrong," decided Bolam. "If he comes up to the front of the house with you, Armstrong may not even let him in." "If a window is open," suggested Mel, "he can leap in through that." "I shall see to it, O Youth of Many Expedients, that a window is opened." "On the first floor, Hakin." "It matters not. Rover can leap well, and even if he cannot make the entire distance in one bound, he can climb the rest. Here on Mars other dogs have learned to climb against the low gravity, and what they can do Rover can do even better." Mel turned to the dog. "Understand, Rover? When I call you, you jump into the house through the window." "You will not call him, O Simple-Minded One," said Hakin. "Not in the ordinary way. You will signal, with this." He handed Mel a small red sphere a half inch in diameter. It resembled a piece of Martian confectionary. "Actually it is an ultra-sonic whistle, whose sound is inaudible to human ears, but very audible to the hearing organs of a canine. We have used it with some of our beasts. When you are ready to signal, you will pop this into your mouth. Meanwhile, you will munch on other confections, of which I have a small box here, so that your preparations for signaling will go unnoticed. You will even offer a piece of confection to John Armstrong." Mel grinned. "You and Bolam have thought of everything, haven't you, Hakin?" "If we were capable of thinking of everything, there would be no danger at all, O Rash One," said Hakin very seriously. "But I am afraid that although we have a surprise for him, John Armstrong may also have a surprise for us." "I suppose you're right." Mel faced the dog again. "When I signal to you with this, Rover, you jump into the house through the window. Listen, Rover." He popped the red sphere into his mouth and blew. He heard nothing, but Rover looked up at him and made complaining sounds. "To a dog the noise is shrill and unpleasant," said Hakin. "He will not fail to hear. Now, is there anything else?" There was nothing else anybody could think of, and Mel and Bolam started off down the street, toward Armstrong's house. It was Mel who looked around for a doorbell to press, but found nothing. He was making up his mind to knock, when a voice came from in front of him, "What do you want?" There was probably an electronic warning device, he thought. That was why there was no bell. And most likely a visor cell was scanning them and transmitting their image to a screen inside. "I'm Mel Oliver. Mr. Armstrong asked me to drop in and see him." "Who is the other man?" "A friend of mine. A—a business adviser." "Mr. Armstrong cannot see you now. He is in the middle of an important experiment." "This is important too. I spoke to him about it on a long distance visor call." "Just a moment." There was a pause of a few seconds. Then the voice said, "You will have to wait a while. But come in." The door opened, and Mel entered. He was followed by Bolam, who was trying to seem small and harmless, and not succeeding very well. Mel stared at the squat figure that faced them. It was a robot butler. "I should have expected this," he thought. "Mr. Armstrong is an expert on robots. He liked to have them around, and make as much use of them as possible." They followed the robot into a sparsely furnished, undecorated room. The robot said, in an obviously mechanical voice, "Please sit down and wait," and then left. "This isn't very homelike," said Bolam. "Mr. Armstrong wouldn't agree with you. If a place looks like a laboratory, it's home to him." The door through which the robot had gone now opened, and a man of about forty came in. He was of medium height, and quietly dressed. His hair was just beginning to thin out on top of his head, and he had a preoccupied look. "I'm Coleman Gardner," he said pleasantly. "Mr. Armstrong's secretary. Could you state your business to me?" Mel remembered the man who had been just out of range of the screen when he had talked to John Armstrong. He said, "I think you know what this is about, Mr. Gardner. I told Mr. Armstrong that somebody had been trying to kill me. I wanted to know if he could help me find out who it was." "I remember your conversation with him, Mr. Oliver. But I'm afraid that Mr. Armstrong is unable to help you." "Suppose we talk to him about that," put in Bolam mildly. "Mr. Armstrong is a very busy man," began the secretary. "And he doesn't like to leave his experiments." "He should be able to spare a few minutes to help save the life of his partner's son," said Bolam, staring grimly at Gardner. Somewhat uneasily, the secretary avoided his glance. "Well, if you put it that way, I shall see what I can do. Just stay here, please." He left, and Mel turned to face the strong man. "Mr. Armstrong is certainly giving us a good looking over before talking to us." "Almost as if he had something to hide." "I wonder if Hakin—" Bolam frowned and shook his head, and Mel stopped. He was being a fool again. They were undoubtedly being watched through spy lenses every moment, and microphones were probably picking up their conversation. Bolam said, "Don't worry about Hakin. He can handle the circus perfectly well without our help." "I hope Rover's all right," said Mel, playing along. "I didn't like the idea of leaving him alone. He still hasn't got over that wound of his." He thought of the signaling arrangement that they had made, and put one of the round pieces of candy in his mouth. Two minutes later the robot came for them again. "Follow me, please," it said. It led them into another bare room. Here, sitting at a desk in the only chair the room contained, Mel recognized John Armstrong. The face looked old and worn, the figure was bent. Armstrong had his eyes fixed on a page full of mathematical symbols, and he did not look up as they approached. "Mr. Armstrong," began Mel. "Yes?" The blue eyes stared blankly at them. "Who—?" "I'm Melvin Oliver. You remember me, don't you, Mr. Armstrong? You asked me to come and talk to you. And this man is Bolam Turino, a friend of mine." "Indeed. What is it you wanted, Melvin?" "I told you the last time I spoke to you. Some one has been trying to kill me. And I'm anxious to find out if you can suggest who it is." "Some one has been trying to kill you? You are mistaken, Melvin. The idea is absurd. Completely absurd." "That's what you said last time, Mr. Armstrong. But there's no mistake about it." "Do not be too certain of that, my boy. Mistakes creep into the most unexpected places. In this pageful of calculations, for instance—" His voice trailed away. Mel looked at Bolam in exasperation. The latter smiled grimly, and said, "Let me handle this, Mel. I'll see to it that we don't get side-tracked." "All yours, Bolam." Mel popped another candy into his mouth, and thought of his instructions. "Will you have one, Mr. Armstrong?" Armstrong said impatiently, "I am not a child to be concerned with candy. Have you finished your business with me, Melvin? I must return to my experiment." "We're just starting, Mr. Armstrong," said Bolam. "Mel's father was your partner, wasn't he?" "Of course. A more amiable man I never met. But is there need to discuss this now? My experiment is waiting." "Maybe you aren't aware of it, Mr. Armstrong, but when his father died, Mel had no relatives to go to." "My experiment—" "Let it wait," said Bolam sharply. "As I started to say, Mel had to stay for a time in an orphanage, and then had to ram his own living." "Excellent, excellent. His experiences, I imagine, have taught him to be self-reliant." "Self-reliant and suspicious. It has recently occurred to him, Mr. Armstrong, that he inherited his father's share of the business. But in all the years since his father's death, he hasn't received a single credit." "Really? I have been negligent about financial details, and I am shocked to hear this. That is very unfortunate. I shall see, Melvin, that you are provided for." "That isn't the point," said Bolam. "Mel isn't asking for a handout. The point is that by rights he owns half this business. And he's entitled to an accounting right now." Armstrong looked at Mel—or rather, right through him. He had a vague expression on his face, as if he were still thinking of something else. Finally he said, "Dear me, I think there is a great mistake. Are you really under the impression, Melvin, that half this business is yours?" "Isn't it, Mr. Armstrong? Isn't half yours and half mine?" "Well, no. You see, after your father's death, I ran into financial difficulties. As the sole surviving member of the partnership, being responsible for saving as much of it as I could, I sold the assets to a group of investors. They took the business dealings out of my hands, which pleased me greatly, and hired me to supervise the necessary research for them. So you see, Melvin, the business now belongs to neither of us." "That isn't what the police found." "The police do not know everything. The financial arrangements have been kept very quiet. But that will make no difference to you, Melvin. I deposited half the proceeds of the sale in a bank in your name, and the money is yours, any time you wish to have it." "You don't happen to know how much it amounts to, do you, Mr. Armstrong?" "A thousand credits, or thereabout, I imagine. Not a bad sum at all for a young man with no responsibilities to a family." A thousand credits, thought Mel. A tiny fraction of what Bolam had led him to expect. Still, if Mr. Armstrong was telling the truth—and perhaps he had documents to back his word—there was nothing Mel could do about it. He might have chosen a bad time to sell the business, but he had a right to do so. "You seem disappointed, Melvin. I thought I had behaved quite shrewdly. Had you expected more?" "A little more," said Mel. He popped the red sphere into Rover Unmasks an Enemy his mouth and blew it. "There's just one other thing, Mr. Armstrong." If all was going as it should, Rover would now be leaping into the house through a window. "One little thing you might clear up for me." "If I can do so briefly, Melvin. But I must really return to my experiment." "You remember that a few weeks ago when you spoke to me you said that you didn't like dogs?" "Of course. They're disagreeable animals. And I happen to be allergic to them." "I guess you can get that way. But when did it happen, Mr. Armstrong? Because I remember that years ago you gave me a puppy for a present. You didn't dislike dogs then." "I gave you a puppy? You are mistaken, Melvin. I can recall no such incident. Your memory has played you false." Mel shook his head. "I don't think so, Mr. Armstrong. What's the real reason you don't like dogs? What's wrong with Rover, for instance?" At the sound of his name, Rover came into the room. Armstrong turned to stare at him, and Rover growled. He took a step toward the man and sniffed, and the hair stood up along his spine. The next moment he had snarled and leaped the man's throat. Armstrong's action was startlingly swift and unexpected. His arm jerked up and without the appearance of effort knocked the dog back against the wall. Bolam plunged at the stooped figure, and this time Mel was even more astounded by what happened. Armstrong seized the strong man in both hands and lifted him into the air. Bolam squirmed and kicked in vain in an effort to get loose. Decrepit as he seemed, Armstrong had a grip of steel. Held high in the air, Bolam threw his feet over his head and kicked hard against the ceiling. The sudden downward thrust was successful in tearing him free from Armstrong's grip, although it ripped his own clothes at the same time and left bruises on his body. Bolam landed on the floor, Armstrong moved grimly toward him again. Mel picked up the chair on which the old man had been sitting and threw it against him. The chair shattered to pieces and the pieces bounced away. But the expression on the old man's face was unaltered. What happened between Bolam and the old man after that, Mel didn't see. He was too busy watching the robot butler enter the room. Despite the fact that robots were not supposed to harm human beings, this robot made straight for him, and only the distraction of another attack by Rover enabled Mel to escape. But his good luck, Mel realized, was only momentary. This time, when Rover was thrown back, he lay where he had fallen. The robot advanced again, and Mel backed away. There was the sudden flash of something bulky being hurled past his face. Armstrong's body whirled in the air and crashed into the advancing metal figure. The next moment the robot sprawled on the floor, the smaller body of John Armstrong alongside him. "Robots can't pick themselves up in a hurry," panted Bolam. "Let's get out of here. Quick!" "But I can't leave Rover. He's hurt!" Bolam bent over and picked up the dog. Armstrong and the robot butler were trying to stand up again, both of then having the same clumsy trouble in getting to their feet. Bolan paused and said, "Wait a minute, Mel. Maybe we'll stay after all." He picked up a piece of the broken chair and smashed first Armstrong and then the robot butler with it. Precariously balanced at the moment the weapon hit them they collapsed to the floor again. Gardner appeared in the doorway. He had a gun in each hand, and he was no longer the politely amiable hard-working secretary. There was a look of hate on his face as he pointed the weapon in his right hand at Mel. The blast swept over the walls just as a sweep of Bolam' arm knocked Mel to the side. Then two hands, each at the end of a long thin arm, had grasped the guns, and were fighting to twist them out of Gardner's grip. Bolam stepped forward and hit the secretary on the jaw. He collapsed, and Hakin, holding the two guns, said softly, "My thanks, O Powerful One." "I didn't feel so powerful a minute ago," said Bolam. He looked down at the floor, where Armstrong and the robot butler lay motionless. "He handled me as if I were a baby." "Your strength, though great, is only human. His is a robot's." "J-John Armstrong a robot?" stammered Mel. "Didn't you know it?" said Bolam. "I suspected the minute Rover attacked him. And when I felt those hands of his on me, I didn't have any more doubts. They don't just feel like steel. They are steel." "But John Armstrong was my father's partner—" "Not this John Armstrong. The real John Armstrong, O Still Innocent One so slow to suspect, the genuine John Armstrong died or was killed after your own father's death." "We'll explain later," said Bolam. "Hakin, where are the controls for these two?" "In the next room. I turned them off when Gardner left to take a hand in the fight himself." "And there are no more robots around?" "It matters not. So long as the Unconscious One remains in his present condition, they cannot be sent against us." "Don't be too sure of that, Hakin. He may have some human assistants. And these robots are unusually dangerous. They don't seem to have any built-in orders not to attack human beings. We had better take no chances." "You are right, O Partner with Powerful Mind. I shall call the police." It was later, after the police had come and questioned the revived secretary, that Mel got a more complete picture of what had happened. Rover had revived, and Mel's hands ran anxiously over the dog's body to feel for broken bones. There seemed to be none, however, and although Rover walked stiffly for a time, he showed no lasting ill effects from his struggles with a robot. Lieutenant Pietro Cellini, of the local police, said to Mel, "I've been in touch with Lieutenant Blazer, over in Marsopolis. He's picked up the man who sent you out into the open air to die. And, from this man's description of the character known as 'Little Jupe,' it's clear that Jupe was nothing but another robot, a simpler one than the fake Armstrong, manipulated by Gardner. Gardner himself made sure that none of the underworld characters he used would be able to give him away." "But Gardner wasn't a technician!" exclaimed Mel. "How did he make a robot that looked and acted exactly like John Armstrong?" "He didn't," said Bolam. "Armstrong did that himself," said Lieutenant Cellini. "It happened some time after your father died. Armstrong was sorry about his death, but not for exactly ordinary reasons. The average man would have grieved at the loss of a friend, would have felt emotional ties to an old companion. Armstrong was too cold and unemotional for that. He was annoyed because now he would have to do everything himself. Your father had attended to many business details, had interviewed many people in the course of running the business. Now Armstrong had to do that himself, and he hated it because it interrupted his research, which was the only thing that interested him. "That's what gave him the idea of making a robot like himself. Gardner was his secretary at that time, and Gardner struck him as being quite capable of handling the business details. Only, most people didn't want to talk to a secretary, they wanted to talk to the head of the business himself. So Armstrong had the robot take his place. He built it with a voice modulator that would reproduce the sound of his own voice, and patterned its gestures and facial expressions after his own. He had a rather easy job there, because he himself was so unemotional that the robot didn't need a wide range of facial expression. All the same, he did an excellent job, producing a much better facsimile of himself than he did of any of his clients in the animal training or similar professions. And he showed Gardner changes to make as time went on, and the robot had to {garbled text} "It isn't easy to make a robot look and sound exactly like a human being, and on his own, Gardner would have found the job impossible. The ironic thing is that Armstrong helped him do it. He trained him in the manipulation of the robot controls, and when there was any doubt in his secretary's mind, Armstrong himself would act as a model to be imitated." "And all the time," said Mel, "he was just preparing for his own death." "An illustration of the stupidity of the wise, O Wide-Eyed One," said Hakin. "Maybe," said Cellini. "Gardner denies he killed Armstrong. Not that it makes much difference, but he claims that Armstrong died a natural death. Naturally, we intend to check on that. At any rate, we can fix the approximate time of death, after the last patent was issued to him. Once he was dead, of course, his research had to stop. That was one job that Gardner couldn't take over or hand to an assistant. But Gardner hid that from the world by pretending that Armstrong was on the track of a great invention that was taking many years to perfect. "You can see now what the situation was. Gardner had complete control of what had once been a business belonging to your father and John Armstrong—and he had no legal right to it whatsoever. When he learned of your existence, he was afraid that you would claim your share, and worse still, that you might possibly get on the trail of what had happened. Hence his attempts to kill you." Mel said thoughtfully, "I don't think I'd ever have guessed. The fake John Armstrong fooled the police, didn't he—or it?" Lieutenant Cellini nodded. "A subordinate of mine, who went to see Armstrong allowed himself to be overawed by the man's reputation. Perhaps I shouldn't blame him. Maybe I'd have been fooled just as easily." "Gardner had me fooled," admitted Mel. "Me too," said Bolam. "At first, anyway." "The only one he couldn't possibly fool was Rover, who'd know that although the figure looked and acted like a man, it didn't smell like one. Gardner knew he had to keep the dog away from him, and thought of the excuse about being allergic to dogs. It was a good thing that you remembered about that puppy the real Armstrong gave you, Mel, and decided to bring Rover along anyway." "You owe much to your beast, O Dog's Best Friend," said Hakin. "And not for the first time," said Mel. Rover looked at him as if he understood his words. Bolam said, "I think that Lieutenant Cellini has cleared everything up, Mel. Now we'd better get back to the circus. We're glad we could help you." "We shall think of you often, O Sudden Possessor of Great Wealth," said Hakin. "What do you mean you'll think of me? I'm going with you," insisted Mel. "You don't have to," said Bolam. "It's clear that the story we heard about selling the business for a small sum is untrue. You own it now." "I don't know anything about running it, and I'll have to hire somebody else to take care of my end of it. I'm staying with the circus—that is, if you think I'm good enough." He waited anxiously, while Bolam ran his huge hand over his square chin and pretended to think it over. "Well, you're not so good, but you'll learn," growled the strong man finally. "Think we can use him, Hakin?" "We need the dog, O Angry-Voiced One. And how can we have the dog without his master?" "You hear that, Mel? Come along." Mel came along, with Rover beside him. In his mind he pictured the audiences waiting eagerly on Mars and Earth and Venus and on Jupiter's moons, he saw them holding their breaths as they watched. He envisioned the clowns and the aerialists and the riders of strange steeds who held their attention. He pictured himself too, tumbling and turning, and herding ferocious beasts with his electrical whip. And he caught a glimpse of Betty smiling at him from the seats and applauding enthusiastically, while her Uncle Gard frowned beside her and chewed angrily on his unlighted cigar. So long as he was with the circus there would always be new and exciting adventures, there would always be something to make his life worth living. Did they expect him to give up all this just to sit home and spend the money some one else had earned for him? "Never," he said, unexpectedly voicing his thought aloud. "Never. You and I, Rover, are sticking to the circus. We're going to have a lot of good times together." The strong man and the rubber man looked at him blankly, but Rover seemed to understand. He raised his right forepaw, and Mel gravely shook hands with him. It was a deal. Meet the Scoundrels of the Spaceways as They Find That Cheating Cheaters is Universal THE Saturnians had never seen anything like it, and they crowded around the novel space ship that Trenholm and O'Hara had set down among them. The native's broad good-natured faces were agape with excitement. On the side of the ship was a flamboyant painting of an Indian girl holding aloft a bottle that contained The Red Man's Old-Fashioned Radioactive Herb Remedy, fortified with vitamins A to R inclusive, the latter made with the most recently discovered carbon isotope. Beside the girl, there had originally been a sign announcing that the ship was the home of Trenholm and O'Hara's Gigantic Medicine Show, but the names of the owners had been painted out and replaced by the better serving names of the Jones Brothers. Trenholm and O'Hara, with understandable modesty, desired no publicity for themselves. O'Hara was giving the Saturnians his usual spiel now. "Come closer, ladies and gentlemen, come closer," he chanted. The ladies and gentlemen, eyes alight with expectation, obeyed. Their faces were elephantine, with huge flapping ears, but without trunks. And to O'Hara they brought back old memories of those ancient cartoons that in bygone days had depicted the Republican Party as a man with an elephant's head. But it was not the heads that chiefly interested him. It was the rough, pink beads they wore around their necks. "We are now about to give you, ladies and gentlemen," he went on, "absolutely free of charge, two hours of the most solid, fascinating, instructive, and educational entertainment it has ever been the fortune of any mortal being to experience! Yes, sir, ladies and gentlemen. Entertainment unparalleled and absolutely free of charge!" Trenholm threw a switch then, and their ancient movie projector flashed a picture of a Martian dancing girl on the three-dimensional screen, while the braying of one of the latest dance tunes came from the loudspeaker. Most of the music had been produced by the new electric trumpets and trombones, with shrill overtones that were guaranteed to deafen a sensitive ear. The Saturnians watched and listened as if spellbound. O'Hara stared at the pink necklaces, and whispered: "Trenholm, my lad, we've got a fortune in our hands!" TRENHOLM nodded. He was a large man, blond, something like an ancient Viking in appearance, but with no trace of Viking recklessness. Recklessness wouldn't have paid. These Saturnians were twelve feet tall, with muscles even out of proportion to their size, and an Earth man compared to them had no more than the strength of a child. O'Hara was small and dark, with a volubility that contrasted with Trenholm's tendency to silence. And at the moment, he was excited, very excited. Attracted by the noise of the music, more Saturnians were flocking to the ship. O'Hara almost went crazy trying to estimate the value of those necklaces. They were made of satargyrite, which was mostly silver sulphide, but they contained appreciable quantities of Element 102. Element 102 was the only known source of atomic energy whose transformation was capable of being accelerated or retarded at will, and the price for it was high, extremely so. But getting it was a very dangerous business. The Saturnians, being below par mentally, were protected by stringent laws. If Trenholm and O'Hara were caught at their little game, the penalty would be at least ten years in a jail that boasted no air conditioning, no television movies, and which guaranteed to teach wayward men the error of their ways. The reel showing the Martian dancing girl came to an end, and Trenholm slipped on another that depicted a Mercurian minstrel show. The jokes and gags were so babyish that a ten-year-old Earth child would have flushed with shame to be caught listening to them, but they suited the Saturnian taste perfectly, and gales of laughter swept the crowd. O'Hara did a little mental calculating then. Judging from the mass of people collected here, they would get rid of their radioactive herb remedy in three days. From advance information they had secured, they could reasonably count on a Saturnian patrol ship being back on the fourth day. That gave them a whole day to spare. O'Hara grinned, and almost felt the untold wealth in his pocket. The Mercurian minstrels wheezed to an end, and O'Hara stepped forward with his right hand raised for attention. "Ladies and gentlemen," he roared, "we offer you now an attraction so sensational, so unbelievable, that you, will think your eyes and ears are playing you false. Nothing like it has been seen or heard of on Saturn from the beginning of time. Nothing like it has been seen or heard of on any of the planets. Ladies and gentlemen, we offer Waloo, the Saturnian with the intelligence of an Earthman!" Waloo stepped forward, grinning with pride. He seemed like an average Saturnian, and he was exactly that. They had picked Waloo up stranded on Mercury, and he had shown no wisdom there. But now he was wearing a pair of huge spectacles whose rims were caught around his flapping ears. And to the other Saturnians he must have looked as wise as a judge. "Waloo," said O'Hara gravely, "how much is two plus two?" WALOO hesitated. "Four," he ventured after a while. The crowd began to whisper excitedly. Evidently they were checking up. After a few seconds, however, most of them were convinced that Waloo's answer was correct, and they stared at him admiringly. "How much is four times six?" O'Hara asked. "Twenty-four," Waloo guessed. "How much is ninety-nine divided by three?" "Seventeen," replied Waloo, grinning stupidly, and O'Hara smothered an oath and swept on to the next question before the Saturnians could make up their minds whether or not he had made a mistake. For a time Waloo answered correctly. And then O'Hara played his trump card. "Ladies and gentlemen," he cried. "You have all heard of the Einstein theory. It is so difficult to understand that few people, even on Earth, know what it is. But Waloo knows! Waloo, explain the Einstein theory." Waloo began slowly. "In ordinary mechanics," he intoned, "if a body moves with the velocity `u' with reference to '0,' and `0' itself moves with velocity 'v' with reference to '0'—" They were stricken with awe. They hadn't the slightest suspicion of what it all meant, of course. For that matter, neither had Trenholm and O'Hara. Trenholm had simply taken the words from a long-outmoded textbook on physics, and copied them for Waloo's benefit on a small placard. The placard was hung on the wall of the space ship, where to the near sighted Saturnians it was practically invisible. But Waloo, with his spectacles, could read the words with ease, just as he had read the answers to the questions O'Hara had asked him. They were spelled in the new interplanetary phonetic manner, and even a Saturnian could pronounce them, no matter how ignorant he might be of their meaning. The whole difficulty with Waloo had been in teaching him to reply to the questions in order, and not to skip on to the next question's answer before the previous one had been given, as he repeatedly did. Waloo came to the end of the Einstein theory, and there was a burst of spontaneous applause. Waloo flushed happily. "The damn fool must really think he knows what he's talking about," O'Hara thought, and then addressed the crowd again. "My friends, you have seen and heard this remarkable exhibition. Would you ever have expected such intelligence from a Saturnian? Would you not have called it impossible? Well you, too, can be as intelligent as Waloo. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, incredible as it may seem, we can increase your intelligence a thousandfold! Just drink one bottle of genuine Red Man's Old-Fashioned Radioactive Herb Remedy with vitamins A to R every day for five days, and you will be able to answer all the questions Waloo has answered. "This intelligence remedy, discovered by an old Indian with one-fourth Martian blood in Oklahoma, U.S.A., Earth, while digging far roots, has a record of one hundred percent success! It is radio-active, as you can see when I bring a bottle close to this electroscope. It has all the vitamins in the world, and it contains that magic element, carbon isotope seventeen-B the form of carbon responsible for the genius of our greatest thinkers. Results guaranteed, or your money back." O'HARA had them going, and he knew it. Stupid as they were, the Saturnians differed from other stupid people, in that they were aware of their deficiency. They had a tremendous respect for intelligence and learning, and would do anything to improve their minds. O'Hara did not tell them that on Earth, the same Radio-active Herb Remedy, consisting of little more than a trace of chemical and some colored water, had been advertised as a purifier of the blood stream and a cure for various disease. On Mercury they had guaranteed it to increase the strength of the muscles. The remedy had an unpleasant taste, and that made people believe in it. And for occasional doubters, he and Trenholm could refer to that Martian doctor who had written a crazy article solemnly asserting that they could improve the intelligence. Sometimes O'Hara could not help grinning when he realized that despite all advances in science, people had the same old weaknesses and desires, and fell for the same old tricks. "Results guaranteed, or your money back!" he repeated. "The price, you idiot, the price !" Trenholm whispered. "Tell them the price!" O'Hara had a tendency to become intoxicated with his own words. "And what do we charge for our magic Radio-active Herb Remedy?" declaimed O'Hara. "Not one thousand Interplanetary Lead Standard dollars, which it is well worth, ladies and gentlemen, which it is well worth. Not one hundred dollars. Not even ten dollars! No, all we ask for five bottles of this wonderful brain stimulator is one small necklace of pink beads. "Think of it, just one small necklace of worthless pink beads for five bottles! And as an extra added bonus, to the first ten purchasers buying this wonderful Radio-active Herb Remedy with all the vitamins, we intend to give away, absolutely free of charge, one pair of beautiful, hand-made, guaranteed plastic spectacles that will make you look as intelligent as you are going to be!" If the Saturnians had been impatient to buy the remedy before, the offer of the spectacles stampeded them. They pressed forward in so dense a mass that O'Hara was forced to plead with them. "Just a moment, ladies and gentle men, just a moment!" he boomed. "There is enough of the Radio-active Herb Remedy for all. And my brother and partner, Mr. Jones, authorizes me to state that our offer of spectacles to the first ten purchasers will be extended to every purchaser!" It was an hour before the buying spree had ended and the last Saturnian had gone, his five bottles of Radioactive Herb Remedy clutched firmly to his breast, and his spectacles with their lenses of plain, green-tinted translucite suspended from his ears. O'Hara was dancing around the ship. "Almost half the stock gone !" he gloated, fondling the necklaces. "Trenholm, one more evening like this, and we're getting out of this place. We'll have enough to be rich!" TRENHOLM was more restrained. "Tomorrow's haul won't be as good as this one," he warned. "We got the cream of the crop tonight." "If only I had thought to take more bottles," O'Hara groaned. He looked around the ship. "Where's Waloo?" he asked suddenly. Waloo was gone. "He's out there in the open country," observed Trenholm. "We'll have to go after him." O'Hara nodded, and went into the ship. He returned with a small round metal object in his hand. "For the stinger prongs," he explained, and they set out. Overhead the rings of Saturn cast a faint, reflecting light, and they could see without using their electric rays. The countryside had an eerie appearance in the semi-darkness. The plants were pyramidal in shape, rising from a broad base, and coming almost to a point, so that they might conserve their heat against the freezing temperatures that would come during the long night. They were almost all dark red and brown in color, and there was no touch of green to relieve the ugly monotony. Trenholm and O'Hara remained at first on a well-traveled path. Then, from far off to the right, came the whinnying of a megapod. They stopped suddenly. "That's probably it," said Trenholm. "Waloo heard it, and set out to capture it." They turned off the path to the right. A small glowing helix came twisting slowly past them, shedding a lurid violet light, and they gave it a wide berth. When excited, the helix had been known to wrap itself with incredible speed around a man's arm or leg, and squeeze. There was terrific force in the luminescent coils, and the usual result was that the arm or leg fell off, the stump cauterized by the radiation as neatly as if done by a surgeon's electrodes. In the distance they saw a megapod bound into the air, and come sailing down again slowly. Then they heard a low whistle. That was undoubtedly Waloo. The Saturnian was no more than a few hundred feet from them, and if they were lucky they would see him in less than five minutes. As they made their way forward, however, a sudden shadow fell on them. They stopped again and looked up. Apparently descending from a spot in one of Saturn's rings, far to the left of them, a cloud of what seemed to be dust was tracing a parabolic path in the air. "I guess that's it," O'Hara said, and grasped the small metal object he had taken from the ship more tightly. "Suppose we put our backs to one of those plants?" he suggested. Trenholm shook his head. "The prongs might slide down its sides," he pointed out. "We'd better stay as far out in the open as we can. Save the energy in that projector." The particles of dust came closer, so that they seemed like small black spheres. Then, while still high up, the spheres distintegrated, and there were a thousand particles for each one that had existed before. They fell less rapidly now, having encountered the resistance of the Saturnian air. But they fell nevertheless, and when apparently only a mile up, the new particles, themselves grown to black spheres, disintegrated in turn. "Do they split again?" asked O'Hara. "No. They're individual stinger animals now." AS the animals drifted down, the Earthmen could make out their outlines. Each black leathery balloon was almost two feet in diameter. There was no appearance of eyes or any other features. Behind each balloon were three large purple streamers several yards in length. It was these streamers, arranged like the prongs of a fork, that had given the animals their name, and it was in them that the danger lay. A single touch of their purple fronds would incapacitate a Saturnian, or kill an Earthman. The prongs were coming closer now, seeming to fill the whole sky. "Turn on the projector," Trenholm said. O'Hara pressed a button, and held the projector over his head. They could see very little, for the prongs blotted out most of the light, and the projector's radiation was ultra-violet. But they knew the projector was working, for above them a prong suddenly came within range, and exploded! The ultra-violet light had struck the black balloon, and both the leathery substance and the purple streamers had dissolved into gas. O'Hara could smell a faint odor of sulfur compounds. The prongs began to explode rapidly now, and for a moment the space above them became clear. But other prongs came drifting in from all sides, and O'Hara could not let up for a second. When he tired, Trenholm took the projector from him, and directed it against the silent throng of invaders. A prong came within ten feet of them without exploding, and O'Hara tore it to pieces with a shot from his electric gun. '"The radiation is getting weak now," Trenholm snapped. "If they keep coming—" A faint wind had sprung up suddenly, and all the prongs began to drift toward the left. "It'll drive them away," exclaimed O'Hara happily. "All we have to do is wait." The wind freshened, and within a minute it rose to hurricane intensity. And after that the rain hit them. Most of the prongs had drifted far enough away to be no longer dangerous, and the rest were disintegrating in the rain. The raindrops were enormous, at least three inches in diameter, and they came down with many times the force of any hailstones Trenholm and O'Hara had ever seen on earth. They fell without breaking up into smaller drops because they were not pure water, but a viscous aqueous solution. The force of the wind had whirled them up from a lake where they had been resting quietly, and was now hurling them at Trenholm and O'Hara. The two men cast themselves on the ground in the lee of a tetraphyte, one of the huge pyramidal plants, and waited for the storm to pass. The drops of rain hit them and splattered, and the droplets rolled down their faces go that they could taste them. They were bitter and nauseous, and their taste was almost worse than the battering they were receiving from the rain. In ten minutes, the wind ceased suddenly, and with it the rain. The two men rose to their feet painfully, and squeezed as much of the liquid as they could out of their clothes. Ahead of them, the megapod sprang into the air a second time, and once more they could hear Waloo whistling to the animal enticingly. THEY started forward again. Soon they could see the megapod clearly. At first glance it looked like nothing more than four huge mustard-colored legs, grotesquely held together at the top by an insignificant body. On each leg was a pair of wings, kept folded when the animal sprang upward, extended as soon as the highest point in the leap had been reached, thus permitting a gradual descent. The wings were useful also during a high wind, for then the animal could soar, and travel long distances without effort. The legs were jointed, and the forelegs were twice as long as the others, so that on the ground the megapod had difficulty keeping its balance. But it occasionally made use of a stiff tail that acted as an additional support. The head was round and tiny, and hardly seemed fitted for a beast of sufficient size to carry a Saturnian. Waloo was holding something green out to it. As Trenholm and O'Hara came closer, they recognized the material as the roots of a rare variety of tetraphyte that was growing all about them. At the same time that Waloo was trying to lure the megapod nearer to him, he whistled coaxingly. The megapod stared at Waloo, its tiny eyes showing its indecision. Finally it leaped forward, and nibbled the green roots. Waloo did not move, and the megapod, encouraged, began to eat steadily. "It's wild, isn't it?" O'Hara asked, low-voiced. "Wild, but not ownerless," Trenholm said. "This field we're in belongs to a group of Saturnians." "Then if Waloo is caught—" "It's jail for him." O'Hara frowned. "What about us?" "The Saturnians will probably make enough noise for someone to send for the patrol," Trenholm replied. "You know what the patrol, will do to us. Jail, and reconditioning of our evil way." "Don't you think we ought to get out of here?" O'Hara exclaimed. "We need Waloo for a couple of evenings yet." Trenholm stiffened suddenly. "Something's happening to the beast!" The megapod had fallen asleep on its feet. With its tail jammed against the ground to keep itself from falling, and its eyes closed, it resembled a piece of sculpture. The green roots had contained a drug called somnal, and it had acted with great speed. Waloo had drawn several pieces of thin, metal twine from his pocket, and was carefully tying the megapod's wings, to prevent them from unfolding. "Where did the Saturnians ever get the brains to handle these animals?" O'Hara wondered. "They didn't," answered Trenholm. "This method of capture was devised by a Martian and taught to them. Watch." The wings had all been tied, and Waloo carefully mounted the animal's back, his feet wrapping closely around it. Then he cautiously bit one of the vertebrae just below the megapod's neck. With one startled spring, his steed was leaping high in the air. WITHOUT the wings to retard its descent, the megapod came down again as quickly as it had gone up, and landed with a shock that sent a tremor through its body. His legs wrapped firmly about it, Waloo held on. The megapod leaped again. This time, with the pain of the descent, it staggered and almost fell. The next leap was not so high, and the following one still lower. Within a few minutes the megapod had become so bruised that it refused to spring. Then Waloo carefully untied the hind wings, and bit the megapod's neck again. The megapod leaped, and on the descent, spread its two free wings. The shock was not so severe now. In half an hour, Waloo had reached the stage where he dared untie all the wings. The megapod no longer attempted to throw him off its back, and Trenhoim and O'Hara watched in fascination as the animal and its rider went floating about the field. A sudden crunching sound on the ground nearby drew the Earthmen's attention. A Saturnian was approaching, his eyes fixed on Waloo. His face showed an expression of deep anger. "We'd better warn the damn fool," O'Hara whispered to his partner. Waloo was unconscious of the danger. Then the Saturnian bellowed suddenly in a voice that sounded like the roar of a hundred bulls, and from behind him came an answering bellow. The megapod, startled, leaped into the air, and, spreading his wings, turned upside down. Waloo began to slip off, clutching desperately at the animal's back to keep his balance. But his efforts were in vain. As he fell, the megapod turned right side up, hit the ground again, and bounded away. "What do we do now?" O'Hara demanded. "We run," Trenholm said. "Somebody is sure to send for the patrol. We can't afford to wait for it." "But Waloo—" "The worst he'll get is a month or two. They'd give us ten years and recondition us. Do you want that?" "But we've still got some unsold bottles!" "We've taken in enough satargyrite to be sitting pretty the rest of our lives. Come on!" Waloo was lying where he had fallen, stunned. They ran without looking back toward him. At first the noise of the Saturnians behind them died away, but as they approached the space ship, it suddenly grew in intensity once more. Waloo was coming after them in great twenty-foot strides. Behind him, the pack of Saturnians was howling their heads off, calling on him to stop. Waloo paid them as much attention as if they hadn't existed. A hundred yards from the ship, he passed O'Hara and Trenholm, who had to swerve aside to prevent being run over by his hurtling body. He got to the ship five seconds ahead of them, and slammed the door in their faces. "What do we do now?" O'Hara cried. "If they decide to make up for losing Waloo by taking it out on us—" But the Saturnians were not interested in the Earthmen. They wanted Waloo. Through the transparent windows of the space ship, they could see him, the key to the door in his hand. THEY shouted at him; they cursed; they urged him to come out and take his medicine like a man. But Waloo didn't budge. Then the Saturnians, in their rage, began to bang against the ship. "They'll wreck it," O'Hara moaned. "And the patrol will be coming back soon!" Trenhoim was breathing hard. "The first thing to do," he said, "is to calm down. Take it easy, O'Hara. It'll be a half hour before the patrol gets here, and we've got plenty of time. We've got to calm these Saturnians and get Waloo out of the ship." "Is that all?" scoffed O'Hara excitedly. "Take it easy, or I'll smack you right in the teeth. That's better. I've got a plan. You're going to talk to these people. Waloo can hear you through the auditory tube, and whether the rest of them pay much attention to you or not won't matter at first. Give them a regular spiel, and lead up to the introduction of Waloo, the intelligent Saturnian." O'Hara got it, and smiled slowly. He took a deep breath, and shouted: "Ladies and gentlemen!" The hubbub came to a sudden stop. "Ladies and gentlemen," he went on, "you are about to witness, absolutely free of charge, two hours of the most solid, fascinating, instructive, and educational entertainment it has ever been the fortune of any mortal being to experience. Yes sir, ladies and gentlemen. Entertainment unparalleled, and absolutely free of charge." There was magic in O'Hara's voice, for they were actually listening to him. They muttered, but they listened. "And to begin with," orated O'Hara, "we offer you an attraction so sensational, so unbelievable, that you will think your eyes and ears are playing you false. Nothing like it has been seen or heard of on Saturn since the beginning of time. Nothing like it has been seen or heard of on any of the planets. Ladies and gentlemen, we offer Waloo, the Saturnian with the intelligence of an Earthman!" And Waloo, hypnotized by the familiar introduction, opened the door of the ship and stepped out, his spectacles hanging from his ears! The mob of Saturnians uttered one huge roar of triumph, and plunged forward, carrying Waloo back into the ship. Trenholm and O'Hara stood by shouting helplessly. It was ten minutes before the Saturnians thought of getting out again, and when they did, they carried the unconscious Waloo as a trophy of victory. For the next couple of months, Waloo would inhabit a cell. O'Hara and Trenholm hastened inside. At first glance, the place was a shambles, but the machinery had not been damaged. They swung shut the door, locked the auditory tube, and started the engine. "Ready?" Trenholm asked, and without waiting for a reply, gave the ship the gun with a jerk that sent O'Hara flying. THE ship rose quickly, passed the rings of Saturn, and straightened out into space in the direction of Earth. O'Hara wiped the sweat from his forehead. Through the rear windows they could see the patrol ship coasting in to make a landing. "That was close," O'Hara panted. "I only hope they don't try to follow us." "I'll take them a half hour to find out from the Saturnians what's been going on, and by then it'll be too late." "If you knew how glad I am to get out of that place—" O'Hara began, and then he howled. "The bottles! The bottles!" "What about them?" Trenholm demanded. "They're gone! Those Saturnians have stolen all our 'Radio-active Herb Remedy! There's just one bottle left. And you claimed they were honest!" "They are, but they have no sense. If they see something in front of them, they take it." "The dumb clucks." And then O'Hara's voice froze with real horror. "They've taken the pink necklaces! And we hid them !" "What!" Trenholm gasped. "Every last one of them!" O'Hara trembled. "We've made a mistake, Trenholm. Those Saturnians aren't stupid !" Trenholm looked. O'Hara was right. Every last necklace was gone. "This is a dishonest business," Trenholm said heavily. "We should never have gone into it. But I don't understand—" He interrupted himself. "Well, I'll be damned!" "What is it now?" "That damn herb remedy! Remember what first gave us the idea of an intelligence improver? That article we read about an infusion of Martian plants containing the new carbon isotope temporarily increasing the I. Q. Well, we used those plants to make our stuff. O'Hara, we actually made those Saturnians intelligent enough to rob us!" "This is a fine time to be thinking of that!" stormed O'Hara. "Calm down," Trenholm urged, "and have a drink." "At a time like this, it's a drink you're offering me!" "Our last bottle of Red Man's Old-Fashioned Radio-active Herb Remedy. There's nothing better for stimulating the brain. I'm thinking we have greater need of it than those formerly dumb clucks we left behind us," Trenholm added gloomily. SKIN DUPE By WILLIAM MORRISON When smugglers break into the mass production beauty factory of the future, manager Johnny Gaynor longs for those starry realms! THERE were exactly 13,457 women in the building at the moment, all of them being made beautiful according to the latest Murchison standards. Not that they looked alike. Every last one of them, thought Johnny Gaynor, was different from all the others, an individual in her own right —and every one was at the same time enough like any of the others to be her sister. That was the beauty of the beauty method, decided Johnny. That was mass production with all the advantages of the old handicraft methods of turning out good looks. There was just one thing wrong with it, thought Johnny. To him they weren't good-looking at all. And it hurt to realize that he was responsible for the whole mess. "Yes, Johnny," said Murchison, belching slightly from the after-effects of a Neohele tablet, "without you there'd be no Murchison method, no business. Without you, these women wouldn't be—what they are." "Trying to drive me to suicide?" asked Johnny sourly. Murchison belched again, rather happily, as the tablet released the rest of its helium. He was a fat man who had lost count of his chins, and he was the only person in his own establishment who had no claims whatever to being worth looking at. "Trouble with you," he grunted, "you're old-fashioned. You like women with nothing on their faces." "Faces or anywhere else. But if I can't have them as I want, I'll compromise. I'll take them with nothing on their faces." "If that's the way you feel, you shouldn't be running a place like this." "I shouldn't," agreed Johnny hopefully. A smile dug into the Murchison chins, and they quivered under the attack of humor. "Nu, my good man! You can't get out of it that easily. Nobody else can handle the job the way you can!" The visor tinkled gently. "Mr. Gaynor." "Yes?" "We've got an addict here. What shall we do with her?" "Anything special?" "No, sir. She just likes to go through the whole process. This is the fourth time she's been beautified, and we have an idea she'll be back for more. She has that look on her face." "Let her go once more, speed her up so that she doesn't enjoy it, then throw her out." JOHNNY cut off the visor, and reached for a tobaccoless cigarette. Before he could lay his hands on it, a pair of metal grippers had reached out from the wall, snatched the cigarette away from him, put it gently between his lips, and struck an old-fashioned match. He said, "Thanks," automatically, before realizing he was talking to Murchison's new robot. "That's what comes of your half-price policy," he told the fat man. "They spend their days here for the fun of the thing." "I like to make people happy," said Murchison blandly. "But somehow I'm not succeeding with you, Johnny. Too bad." As the fat proprietor waddled away, Johnny cursed him bitterly. He didn't mind the fact that Murchison overheard him. Johnny had been a space explorer, searching for the rare minerals that were to be found in the asteroid belt. Against what seemed like incredible difficulties, he had succeeded in locating a vast deposit of astrolustrite, a compound of ordinary metals with oxygen and chlorine, but found only on certain asteroids where it had been produced under extraordinary conditions of temperature and pressure. Astrolustrite was one of those minerals eagerly sought by vendors of beauty. It removed wrinkles, smoothed the skin, gave it a beautiful lustre, and did everything but clean the teeth and tone up the digestive tract. There had been a shortage, and Johnny brought the shortage to an end. In the competition for his services, Murchison, who had promised Johnny the biggest bonus, and the highest-paying job, managed to win. The bonus had gone toward paying off debts that Johnny had accumulated in years of prospecting. It was the job that stuck in his throat. Instead of being made captain of a space fleet, or head of an exploring unit, as he had expected, Johnny, in whom the wily Murchison had discovered an unsuspecting executive talent, had been degraded to the position of manager of the beauty emporium. It was his job, knowing nothing of the beauty business, to keep things running right, and to turn out beautiful and satisfied customers. Johnny hadn't dared to face his old friends, and he would have thrown the job back at Murchison with instructions where to put it, if he hadn't been in a spot. Johnny had relatives. The youngest was sixty, the oldest eighty-five. They had no one else to depend on, and Johnny knew that without him they would starve slowly. He accepted the proffered job. Worse than that, he made a go of it. He made the great discovery that to run a business profitably, it wasn't necessary to know anything about it; all that was needed was the ability to hire people who did know about it. Johnny's assistants knew things about beauty that he himself never so much as suspected. All he possessed was the talent to keep them working and away from each other's throats. When Murchison had gone, Johnny waved a finger in a figure eight. The gesture rang a bell, and the slim figure of Archie Mason appeared in the visor. "Yes, Mr. Gaynor?" "Get the designer." "Yes, Mr. Gaynor." The designer was a tall young man who had studied art, the history of art, the theory of art, the aesthetics of art, and the philosophy of art. For Johnny, who hardly knew that these things existed, he had a genial contempt. He used Mason's words, but haughtily. "Yes, Mr. Gaynor?" "I want a new beauty design," said Johnny. "What's more, I want it set into the machine in an hour." "But, Mr. Gaynor, it can't be done." "Never mind the excuses," interrupted Johnny. "This is an easy one. Stripes." "Stripes, Mr. Gaynor?" "Absolutely. I want the customers to have their faces striped, in red and white, and in whatever other color combinations you can think up." "But, Mr. Gaynor, they'll look like ancient barber poles!" "I see that you have the idea," said Johnny dryly. "Furthermore, I want the stripes to extend through their hair do's, and down as far as their dresses. Get going." "But, Mr. Gaynor!" said the designer, and got going. An hour later, the customers were having their faces striped like barber poles. Johnny chuckled when he thought of what old Murchison would say. . . ARCHIE MASON, who was Johnny's assistant, knew about many things besides beauty. He knew that his salary was far from enough to pay for the luxuries he considered his due, and he knew that to make more money he had to take a chance. He had taken it. Now, in his private office, over a specially channeled long distance visor, he spoke to Rockets Sloan, whose face lacked the beauty and delicacy that Archie preferred. Rockets, in fact, looked like the common conception of a space-devil, which is horrible enough to frighten a child on any tele program, and sometimes frightened Archie as well. But Rockets had long been accustomed to taking chances in order to make money, and he and the aesthetic Archie were unquestionably in the same boat. "We got the pigs," said Rockets, and his space-diabolical face wore a look of satisfaction. "They are being—er—properly transported ?" "No," said Rockets, and the look of satisfaction disappeared. "We're blocked off. Patrol ships." An expression of alarm appeared on Archie's face. "Then there's danger?" "Keep your plastics on. I said blocked off, not surrounded. We'll get them away. But we can't get them to Mars, as we planned. We'll have to detour, and hide them for a while." "But where?" "Your place." "I beg your pardon'?" "That's all right with me." "I mean, I didn't hear you!" "You heard me, all right. You beautify dogs, don't you?" Archie nodded slowly, as he got the idea. Some time before, at the suggestion of an enthusiastic customer, Johnny had extended the beauty process to animals. Now a woman could send her dear Fifi through the automatic Murchison salons, and know that he would come out with hair clipped, tail beribboned, blanket cleaned, face made up, and skin shining with astrolustrite, all in a manner to do credit to a mistress whose beauty was just as greatly enhanced. And as dogs varied in size, the machine was adjustable within wide limits, and would have no difficulty in taking the animals that Rockets meant to send over. "I'm afraid," began Archie. Rockets cut him off with a coarse expression that was used in the outer reaches of the System. As Archie flushed, he went on: "You've invested a few credits in this, friend. Want to lose them, or to get them back with interest?" "To get them back, of course." "Then prepare to welcome those pigs." The visor blinked off, and Archie sat back, appalled. The pigs weren't really pigs, of course. That was just the affectionate name that Rockets had given them. They were Venus aardvarks, small, snouted, rather cute animals that made wonderful pets for the few lucky enough to have them. There was one slight difficulty. On Venus, their natural enemies were sufficiently numerous to keep their numbers down. On Earth, they didn't live long. But on Mars, if uncontrolled, they might multiply so rapidly by a simple process of budding that in a few years they would overrun a country. They could be checked, of course, but by measures that cost millions. Hence the necessity to register every animal, and to permit its possession only by thoroughly reliable owners, who would cooperate with the government in preventing their increase. There were, as Archie knew, plenty of socially prominent Martians who would give whatever eyeteeth they still possessed to have one of the creatures as a pet. That was why the prices of smuggled animals were so high, and why Archie had invested his money in the enterprise to bring them to Mars. He had thought that all he needed to do was supply a certain amount of cash, and pocket the profits. But he had never counted on being personally involved in the process of smuggling. He shivered slightly as he thought of himself as a criminal, hunted by the police. The next moment, however, he reassured himself. The aardvarks were docile creatures; they would go through the beauty process without trouble, and come out looking enough like dogs to fool anybody. He would have them dyed black, provide them with false beards to make them look like slightly overgrown Scotties, and complete the deception with a pair of dark glasses. Plenty of dogs wore glasses nowadays, and hardly received a second glance. As for the snouts, a little extra hair around the face would conceal them. He would arrange the whole thing simply by adjusting the necessary machines, without mentioning to anyone that he had done so. This time he didn't shiver as he thought of the police. This time they were poor powerless police, befuddled and bedeviled by that dashing and resourceful criminal, Archie Mason. A FEW days later Murchison belched slightly, as usual, and observed genially, "Johnny, you're a genius." "Sure, I am," said Johnny, glumly. "Whoever would have thought of striping their faces?" "Me. I." "Nobody else. When I first heard of it, my first impulse was to throw you out on your ear. Then I reconsidered. Johnny Gaynor, I said to myself, is shrewd. Johnny Gaynor knows his business. Let's wait and see." He belched again, before resuming gracefully. "So I wait, and what happens?" "You take another Neohere. Gas happens." "Good old Johnny. The first woman through the process looks at her face in a mirror and lets out a shriek. 'Oh, my dear—it's divine!" "The idiot," said Johnny. "They all think it's divine. They all rush to have their faces striped. My competitors tear their hair. Why didn't they think of it? Because they haven't got a man like Johnny Gaynor working for them." "I did it because I thought it would raise as much commotion as a sun-spot shooting at Mercury. I wanted to get fired." "As if I didn't know!" Murchison grinned. "But I'll never fire you, Johnny. You're too valuable to me. You're in this job for life." Johnny muttered to himself again, for the hundredth time after learning that his new process had become the rage, when Archie Mason, his face haggard, ushered in a gentleman. The fact that Archie had neither phoned nor visored them before doing so was so extraordinary that both Johnny and Murchison stood up it surprise. One look at the man facing them, however, was enough to explain. "My name is Vickers," he said rather grimly. "Captain Vickers, as you can see from my uniform." "Of the Inner-System beat," said Johnny. "Want to be beautified, Captain?' Captain Vickers was tall, broad, and scarred by numerous adventures. He had acquired many things in service, but apparently not a sense of humor that functioned at his own expense. He scowled. When he did that, he looked even more terrifying than Rockets, and the watching Archie almost fainted. Vickers spat out, "This is no joking matter, gentlemen. I have learned that a cargo of smuggled Venusian aardvarks has been landed illegally at a nearby space port. It made off in a direction opposite to this, then reversed its path and headed for this establishment. It is an obvious conclusion that the aardvarks are to be disguised." Johnny and Murchison stared at each other. It was also obvious to Johnny that if Vickers was telling the truth, the smugglers had a secret ally within the building itself. He wondered if Murchison, not quite satisfied with his already considerable profits, had decided to add to them. "I have posted my men," said Captain Vickers, and was beginning to give details of his foresight, when a face in the visor interrupted him. "Some of the arrdvarks are on the process line, Captain!" exclaimed an excited patrol sergeant. "Locate any of the smugglers?" "Not yet, Captain Vickers." Vickers faced the others. "When they do, there'll be shooting I want you to clear the building of all customers. And you yourself stay in this room until the shooting is over." "We can speed up the beauty process a little," said Johnny pleasantly, and licked his lips at the thought. "Impossible," said Murchison, appalled. "It'll kill them!" "Not quite. I'll admit that they won't like it—but I will. And orders from the space patrol are orders." Captain Vickers departed grimly. Murchison stared at his loyal manager, and said, "Johnny, you can't do this." "Can't I, though!" Johnny pulled a lever. "Watch how they take it." On the whole, they took it badly. The three men stared into a control visor and watched the agonized faces of the women whose beautification Johnny had speeded up. Plastic fingers massaged their skulls at double the usual rate, and instead of the customary pleased look, there were grimaces of pain. Chemicals were slapped on hard, hair was twisted by robots who had lost their gentleness of touch, and blasts of air almost knocked the hapless victims down in the drying process. "It's for their own good," said Johnny. "They've got to get out before the shooting begins." "There won't be any shooting," said a surly baritone, and turning to the door, Johnny saw one of the ugliest harridans it had ever been his misfortune to look at. The harridan, who held a charged gun in one hand, took off its hat, and with it almost all its hair, to reveal a close-cropped skull. Archie blanched. "Rockets!" he whispered. AT FIRST Johnny mistook the expression for a mild oath, of the "Oh, sugar!" variety. But a second look at Archie's pale countenance told him the truth. It was Archie, and not Murchison, who had been working with the smugglers. "Don't get excited," cautioned Rockets, "and don't try to turn on any communicators. I'm wise to all the tricks." "Good," said Johnny. "In that case, you know that the place is surrounded, and that there's no chance of your getting out. Why not surrender now and save trouble?" Rockets grinned, accentuating his resemblance to a space-devil. "You got it all figured out, friend. But that's IPA the way it's going to be. I have plans." "All exits are guarded," pointed out Murchison. "Not all, fat man, not all. I want you fellows to do something for me." "Whatever it is, we won't do it!" insisted Murchison stoutly, in both senses of the word. But his chins quivered. "Unless I force you to. I want you to stay here." "That we'll do," conceded Johnny. "And I want you to open one exit." "We can't!" began Murchison. "We can," said Johnny. "But it won't be easy. Mind if I take a cigarette and think it over?" Without waiting for a reply, he stretched out his hand. And then he tried an old trick. "Look out—behind you!" he cried. On Rockets, as he had expected, the direct effort was almost nil. But Archie jumped like a startled Martian grill-deer, and Rockets waved the gun threatingly at him, annoyed. At that moment, the robot reached out helpfully for Johnny's cigarette, and steel fingers poked Rockets in the side. He gasped, and dropped his weapon. Then he dived for it, only to find that Johnny had got to it first. Rockets was no fool. He saw Murchison's weight coming at him and made a quick retreat. The door slammed before Johnny could turn around. Johnny faced his assistant. "All right, Archie, you may as well confess," he began. Archie did, but indirectly. He fainted as neatly and efficiently as if he had been practising fainting all his life, and fell into a chair. "The dirty space-rat," spat out Murchison, still quivering from his contact with physical adventure. A delayed Neohele belch somewhat spoiled the effect he sought, but Johnny eyed him approvingly none the less. "What do you think he meant when he said one exit wasp" guarded?" "Not a thing, Johnny. He was bluffing." "I don't think so," said Johnny thoughtfully. "There's a patrol officer to every exit," argued the fat man. "And we know there are no secret exits." "Right. Therefore, if one exit isn't guarded, there's one patrolman who's been bought." "By Pluto, you're right," gasped Murchison. "Johnny we've got to warn Captain Vickers." "Not by phone or video," said Johnny. "They may be tapped. You'll have to do it personally." "I? Johnny, you know that I find it painful to walk." "I'll have to close the exits mechanically. And if you find it painful to walk, you find it impossible to manipulate the building controls. Murchison, old man, I'm afraid you'll simply have to move one foot after another and warn Captain Vickers." The fat man glared at him, belched again unexpectedly, and then barged off muttering. Johnny grinned. As a matter of fact, he had little fear that the video had been tapped—Rockets had been so busy in other ways that he could hardly have had time to do that. But Johnny wanted Murchison out of the way, and he had maneuvered him out. He strolled over to the controls. He didn't know which patrol officer was working for Rockets, and he didn't want to take a chance. As by this time all the women were out of the building, he closed the exits mechanically, and threw the switches which caused metal hands to reach out and grab the protesting guards. These door-protectors had been installed for the purpose of seizing patrons who had gone through treatment and tried to escape without paying, and it was a good thing that Vickers and his men hadn't suspected their existence. THE video panel gave him twenty separate views of what was going on in different parts of the Murchison establishment. Several of them had traveling scanners, and with their aid, Johnny picked up Murchison, who had stopped to wipe his brow, and Captain Vickers, who was barking orders in martial style. It had been years since Johnny had come across a chance like this, and he didn't mean to miss it. He pressed a series of buttons. Under Murchison and Vickers, the floor moved. The two men fell over sideways, through doors that opened in the walls and onto the process escalators. When they were safely on, he turned his attention to some of the other patrolmen. He switched on the audio receivers for just a moment, for the sweet pleasure of hearing Murchison's anguished screams. Vickers, who had only a vague idea of what was going to happen to him, was cursing in a dignified manner, as befitted an officer and a gentleman. Johnny grinned again. Vickers would find out. The escalators reached the stripping section, and Murchison began to lose his clothes. He knew all right, thought Johnny. And Vickers was beginning to get the idea. But there was no turning back. The clothes were off, and the soft pounding massages began. Then the weight-loss treatments. Murchison obviously needed them badly, for the automatic weight-estimators kept him in action to the full extent of time allowed, long after Vickers had been shot through into the next phase. They were showered, dried, partly dressed. Soft dabbers applied make-up, plastic fingers set the hair, perfumed sprays solidified the set with chemicals. And behind them came a long line of patrol officers and space criminals, including the struggling figure of Rockets himself, their weapons lifted skillfully by mechanical searchers, long accustomed to removing valuables and dangerous objects from purses, and those traditional hiding places, feminine stockings. Nearby, an aardvark, catching a glimpse of itself in a mirror in the guise of a Scotty, mooed unhappily. Near Johnny a figure stirred and moaned. Johnny showed his teeth in what was half a grin. To the terrified Archie, it seemed like a ferocious sign of an insatiable appetite for double-crossers, and he cowered away. "All right, Archie-boy," said Johnny gently. "I'm not going to bite—not yet, anyway. Give me the story." Archie was in no mood to resist. He told what he knew. "Fine," observed Johnny. "Do you know all the men in Rocket's gang?" "Oh, no!" "All the same, I think you can help us find the lad we want. Sit quietly while I draw up a little document, and then come with me." By the time Johnny got there, Murchison and Vickers had already arrived in the mirror room. Behind them, other victims of the beauty method were being dumped upon completion of the treatment. Johnny took one look, and was embarrassed at the sight of what he himself had done. He turned his face away from the striped countenances of Murchison and Captain Vickers. At his side, Archie just gasped. "Are you the one responsible for this?" demanded Vickers grimly. His hand moved twitchingly to the spot where he had kept his weapon. "Had to do it," replied Johnny. "You had a traitor in your ranks. All right, Archie-boy, put your finger on him." "I told you," began Archie, and at that moment a pretended patrolman dashed for the exit. Vickers stepped in his way, and as the man dodged, Johnny thrust out a casual foot. The man went headlong, scraping the floor with his face. As he lifted himself to a sitting position, an automatic adjuster began to touch up the stripes which the accident had smeared. "Archie didn't know him, but the man didn't realize that" Johnny told Vickers, "Can you handle him now?" "I'll handle him," said Vickers, still grim. "And I'll handle you too." "Later," returned Johnny. "For the moment, I leave you to your shame. You can remove those stripes and any other decorations you don't care for, and come to see me. I'll be waiting." IT WAS no more than a half hour later that Murchison and Captain Vickers appeared in his office. Both were their usual selves, although Murchison had obviously lost weight, and Vickers was breathing hard, as if he had just gone through a grueling workout—or was preparing for one. It was he who began the conversation. "What do you have to say for yourself before I tear you into shreds?" he demanded ominously. Johnny was polite and casual. "In one word—photographs." "Photographs?" repeated Murchison. "Exactly. I got video views of what was happening to you. The more interesting ones I recorded for posterity. Vickers turned pale and sat down. Murchison turned pale and sweated. He said, "What was the idea, Johnny? I never did anything to you!" "Not much, you didn't." "Anyway, Captain Vickers never did anything to you." "I didn't like his manner, and I thought it could stand correcting. And I imagine it's being corrected right now." He said dreamily, "Can you imagine what some of our interplanetary circulation sheets would do with visions like those I snapped?" "Why, Johnny? Why did you do it?" "Blackmail, my fat friend and supposed superior." "Are you blackmailing me too?" demanded Vickers. "Indirectly. Directly, only this plump gentleman here. I hereby announce that if he doesn't take me off this job on which I have been stuck for what seems like a hundred revolutions of Pluto, I'll press the necessary button, and have those pictures shipped to people who will know how to use them." "I'll take you off, Johnny," said Murchison, his lips compressing themselves into a thin line. "You'll have to do more than that," Johnny said with a smile. "You'll have to make me captain of a space freighter of a certain size and design, and guarantee to keep me there for a given period. It's just a question of making good on an old promise." He drew a set of papers from his desk. "I've drawn up a contract. Captain Vickers can be full witness, and we can have a couple of video-witnesses in addition who will testify to the signing, but won't read the contract itself." "Never!" shouted Murchison. "I won't let you get away with this!" "You won't mind your pictures being broadcast through the system? I have some beauties. They'll get complete circulation. You won't have a satellite left to hide on." "Publish and be blasted from here to Sirius!" "I was afraid that might be your attitude," said Johnny regretfully. "That leaves me one recourse. Indirect blackmail of Captain Vickers." "What am I supposed to do?" demand ed the grim Captain. "You are supposed to persuade Mr Murchison to sign. If you do, you get your pictures. If you don't—well, that will be unfortunate." He could see the wheels going round in the Captain's head. "Don't get any ideas, Captain. I have you covered now by a couple of robots. Make a wrong move, and those pictures go out by automatic sender. But persuade Murchison, and you get them back." "How am I going to persuade him?" "That, Captain, I leave up to you. How do you persuade a space-crook to confess?" An even grimmer than usual Vickers turned his face toward Murchison. He had his strength back now. "Come along, fellow. You and I have a few things to talk over." "Wait a minute!" "Come along, I said." Vickers' hand seized the fat man's collar. "Let go of me—I'll sign." The chins quivered, then firmed. "May every curse in the system fall upon you, Johnny, for this! May the plagues of Pluto get you!" "Forget the dramatic despair," said Johnny. "Just sign. And by the way I want it understood—no reprisals." "What?" exclaimed Vickers. "No reprisals," insisted Johnny. "I want your word as an officer of the space patrol." The thought of reprisals had evidently been not too far back in the Captain's mind, and it was a heavy blow to give them up, but finally he promised. He was silent as he witnessed Murchison's signature. "As for Archie," said Johnny, "I pity the poor idiot. I think a lecture from a judge should convince him that crime doesn't pay. Give him my old job, Murchison. And ship those aardvarks back to Venus. I've got them in a chilled room, but they're buddin' anyway. If they increase too much, you'll be held responsible." "Never mind the free advice," snarled Vickers. "Where are those photographs?" "I hadn't realized you were so anxious to see them," said Johnny. He waved an arm, and a cupboard slid open. Both men were in such a hurry that they got in each other's way, and each guarded his own photographs as if they were priceless secrets. "Beautiful, aren't they?" observed Johnny, genial as ever. If Vickers had turned pale before, this time the colors of the rainbow chased each other across his face. Red, green, yellow, and purple were there in turn. Then a flame shot up, and consumed the photographs. Murchison was not far behind. In fact, he used the same ancient match. "Too bad," said Johnny, dreaming of the space freighter that was to be his. He moved to the side of the room. "I'm disappointed in you two." "Disappointed?" repeated Murchison. "I was hoping you'd let me have a set to hang on the walls of my cabin in that freighter. Autographed!" he added hurriedly, and ducked outside. Disappointment You just can't stop Horton Perry, the salted nut king, from complaining about that ultra-scientific son-in-law of his! THE day was to mark the beginning of the great disappointment of his life, but Horton Perry had no suspicion of that. He knew only that the man who had just been presented to him as the husband-elect of his only daughter, was precisely one of those men he had always despised. Even Stewart Payne's appearance was against him. He was tall, lanky, and dressed in very imperfectly fitting clothes that seemed to have been slept in. Perry wouldn't have hired him as a nut salesman in fifty years. Perry himself was of medium height, plump, nattily dressed, and possessed of an air of great friendliness. He smiled easily, even when he prepared to cut your throat, and he could look you in the eye, even when preparing to stab you in the back. Payne, however, couldn't perform either of these feats. He never stared at the person to whom he was talking—he always stared through him. The older man noted the strange quality of his gaze, as if Payne's eyes had the faculty of focusing X-ray images on a peculiar retina that no other human being could match. The eyes were a giveaway. Payne poke to the man who was about to become his father-in-law. He even listened to him, yet all the time he paid him no genuine attention whatever. The secret recesses of his mind seemed occupied with mysterious problems he shared with no one. It was clear that he was one of those impractical, absent-minded men with no future prospects that any sensible man would have paid a cent for. And Horton Perry, who had salted away in his business more than most people would have guessed, suspected that he was going to be asked to pay much more than a cent. "What are you going to do for money?" Perry demanded. Payne looked surprised. "Why, Mr. Perry, I have my salary." "How much is that?" "Three thousand dollars a year," said Payne proudly. "I'm an assistant professor, you know." Perry winced, and his second chin shook with emotion. Three thousand wouldn't keep his daughter in peanuts, which were the least expensive nut he sold. But Angela herself, a curly-headed blonde with frivolous features that most people had the habit of associating with an empty head, smiled fondly into Payne's face, her own expression reflecting his pride. "Stewart won't be an assistant for very long, Father." Angela's head was not at all empty, her will could be iron, and on the whole, Perry had long ago decided that it was more dangerous to argue with her than with his most implacable business enemy. He did what lawyers called stipulating the point. "How much does a full professor get?" he demanded. "Well, er—" Payne's face had that faraway look again. "I'm not sure." "Six thousand dollars a year," said the more practical Angela. "That is, after ten years." NORTON PERRY tried not to grit his teeth. He knew his daughter, and he could see that she was as much determined to make this man his son-in-law as he had been determined to make himself the nut king. "Look here, Payne," he began, "if you marry Angela, you live on your salary, and not a penny will you receive for housekeeping. However, I have no objection to putting you in the way of making a decent income by your own efforts. Assuming, that is, that you are capable of making a decent income at all." He seized a bowl of cashews and spoke unexpectedly: "Here, taste these." Payne took a handful from the top, and chewed as if he were performing an experiment. "Rather flat," he said. "Angela, you try these pecans." Angela ate daintily. "Too salty," she answered. "You're both right," declared Horton Perry. "And right there is my problem. In this day of television, walkie-talkies, and atomic power, it ought to be an easy one. I'll give you five hundred dollars to solve it. I regard the money as practically a gift. All the same, do a good job, and there'll be more such gifts coming." "I don't understand, Father. What problem did you say?" "The nut-salting problem. We have found it impossible to salt nuts and have the salt remain properly distributed. Those cashews have been shaken in a box, so that most of the crystals have fallen to the bottom, and the top nuts taste flat. Of course, the salt sticks better on some nuts than on others. Some are more oily, others are dry. "We find, in many cases, the problem is an annoying one, and I'm anxious to have it solved. I want you, Payne, to devise a method of keeping the salt evenly distributed over every kind of nut, so that a train or truck ride doesn't shake it down. If you're as good a scientist as Angela thinks you are—" "Better," interrupted Angela. "Then the job shouldn't take you more than a week. And five hundred dollars isn't bad for a week's work. Is it a deal?" Payne didn't answer directly. He was talking absently to himself, and Perry could catch only a few phrases. "Sodium ion," "chloride ion," "adsorption in nionomolecular layers," "orientation of unsaturated paraffin chain in triglycerides," and "possibly of utilizing eketric dipoles" struck his ear. It was Angela who spoke up briskly, "It's a deal, Father. Stewart will do the job in a week." "Good. Bring me your formula for the process, and you can get married." "Oh, no, Father, we're getting married anyway." "I refuse to give you my permission until Payne has solved this problem." "Then we'll get married without it." Perry glowered at her as she led the still thinking scientist from the room. That gentleman was talking to himself of van der Waals forces and potential barriers as he passed through the doorway. Perry muttered an oath to the empty room. Trust his daughter to pick a nincompoop like that, who would condemn her to live out her days in poverty —and probably enjoy herself in the process. Then, with the efficiency for which he was famed in the nut business, he put his daughter and her fiance out of his mind, and turned his full attention first to the mysterious spotting of a cargo of worrisome walnuts, and after that to the more congenial problem of how to do "Norton Nuts," his hated rival out of an important order. IT was two weeks later, on the very eve of his wedding, that Stewart Payne called his father-in-law-to-be. "I think I've solved your problem for you, Mr. Perry," he began modestly. Perry clutched the phone tighter. "Fine. How did you do it?" "Well, if we coat the nut with a solution of sodium chloride in a suspension of a certain chrysanthrene derivative— "How much does this stuff cost?" "Oh, a dollar or two a pound," replied the scientist vaguely. "Or possibly five dollars a pound. It doesn't matter greatly. We wouldn't use much of it." "How much would it cost to dry the nuts after coating them?" "A fraction of a cent per pound. Of course, expensive machinery could be required—" Suddenly Payne's voice died away to a mumble. "What was that?" "It has just struck me that—yes, I think that would be an objection." "What has struck you? What's the objection ?" "Merely that some of the fused ring anthracene derivatives are carcinogenic." "What does that mean in English?" "That they are cancer-producing." "You mean that people who ate the nuts you treated would get cancer ?" Payne said absently, and as if he had lost interest, "Yes, there is that possibility." He added, as if to himself, "Perhaps I'd better think of something else." "Perhaps you'd better," snarled Perry, and slammed the receiver down with a curse. His worst forebodings had been realized. A month after the honeymoon, Horton Perry visited his son-in-law's laboratory. "So you think that this time you have it?" he asked in surly tones. "Absolutely, Father," answered Payne respectfully. "This is it." "We've conducted tests," said Angela proudly. "The materials used are inexpensive and harmless. They coat the nuts evenly. Stewart has measured the amount of sodium chloride—" Perry snorted. "Since when have you known what sodium chloride means, Angela? Don't put on airs for me." Angela smiled without resentment "Stewart has measured the amount of salt abraded in a shaking machine, and found it trifling," she remarked. "In fact," Payne insisted, "the insignificant quantities removed can be detected only spectroscopically." Horton Perry took a handful of the cashews offered him, and examined them carefully. They sparkled like tasty diamonds, and none of the salt came off onto his hands. He popped them into his mouth. The next moment he exploded. It was a question of what shot out of his mouth first, the nuts, a tremendous curse, or two teeth which had been broken out of his plate. Nuts and teeth hit the floor simultaneously with ominous crackles, while the thunder of his voice filled the room. Angela shrieked in dismay, "Father, what happened?" But Payne, ever the scientist, was wasting no time over his father-in-law's misfortune. He had picked up a couple of nuts, and was examining them with his usual thoughtful air, looking past the surface into the space between the atoms. "Very interesting and unexpected. "Slow secondary reaction — intensification of surface forces. May have some relation to the case hardening of steel." He placed a cashew on the soapstone laboratory table and pounded it with a hammer. The nut sank into the soapstone and cut the hammer at the same time. Its own surface showed not a scratch. Horton Perry, still cursing, didn't even notice. A YEAR later, shortly after the birth of his first grandchild, Horton Perry visited the laboratory again. He had heard nothing from his son-in-law that indicated a solution of the nut-salting problem, and in view of the fact that the arrival of his grandson had cost him five thousand dollars, which Angela had extorted from him in addition to the promised five hundred, he was feeling rather bitter. His son-in-law, outside of having fathered a child, was a conspicuous failure. He had, it was true, published two short scientific papers on the nature of surface forces, but they were written in incomprehensible scientific jargon, and Perry had tossed them aside in disgust. What he wanted was the answer to his problem. Payne was working in a high-pressure room at the end of the building, and Perry sat down at his son-in-law's desk to wait, his eyes wandering idly over notes which were meaningless to him, while with his right thumb and forefinger he felt the new set of false teeth which had replaced the one damaged by the impenetrable cashews. At the end of five minutes he was boiling at the idea of having wasted so much of his valuable time. Five minutes more, and he Lad stood up and was about to stalk out of the room, when a man stopped him. The man carried a revolver in his hand, and Perry was too excited to notice his height, age, or any of the facial details which might have been useful later to the police. He spoke tersely. "I'll have that formula now, Doctor Payne." "Put that gun down," said Perry excitedly. "Don't be a fool, Doc. I can shoot and be out of here before anybody knows what's up. I want that formula." "Don't call me Doc. That isn't my name. And don't talk nonsense about a formula I've never heard about." "The one you mention in your articles, Doc. The one that produced those surface changes you wrote about. Hand it over." "I am trying to tell you that I am not Doctor Payne. And furthermore—" At this point, Payne entered, his eyes seeming to look through the revolver, the bullets with which it was loaded, and the wall behind it. "I thought I heard someone mention my name." "So you're Doctor Payne. Okay, you hand over that formula." "I'm afraid I can't do that," said Payne apologetically. "It wouldn't do to have my methods become general knowledge. Not at this stage. And I think that you'd better let me hold that revolver for you. It's a dangerous weapon, you know." He reached for the weapon, and the man drew back, a little baffled at the casualness of his behavior. "Hold it, Doc. I'm serious in wanting that formula. And don't crowd me, or I'll shoot." "That's absurd," said Payne, and snatched at the gun. The revolver exploded in what seemed like a continuous roar, and Horton Perry dived behind the desk. The bullets struck his son-in-law in the chest, but Payne did not fall. He merely staggered slightly under their impact, as they ricocheted from his body and fell to the floor. It was the kind of thing Horton had never seen except in his secret reading of comic books, and he refused to believe it even though it was taking place before his eyes. The would-be burglar seemed to feel the same way about it. His eyes were wide and glassy, and he was swallowing nervously, his mouth open, and his breath coming through it as if he were a child seeing a stage magician for the first time. SUDDENLY the miscreant snapped out of his stupor. Reversing the revolver, he struck Payne over the head with it. Payne staggered again, and seemed annoyed. The revolver butt shattered, and fell to the floor. The man was running for his life, when Payne threw a handful of cashews at him. Three of them caught him on the head, and he gave a howl of pain. Then he was gone, and Payne turned to face his father-in-law. "You—you aren't hurt?" Perry asked doubtfully. "Of course not. Those bullets couldn't penetrate my skin." "It wasn't a trick? I mean, you didn't hypnotize me, and make me think I saw all this?" "I can't hypnotize any one. I had simply treated my own skin by the same method I had developed for use on those cashews. It is now impenetrable by ordinary means." "The same as the cashews?" "Well, yes." "You haven't advanced an inch in solving that problem we talked about last year?" "The theoretical questions involved are much more complicated than I had thought," Payne said absently. "I think that if you read my papers—" "I've tried to. I can't." "Yes, that's the trouble with our educational system. Imagine an adult—" "Don't make any dirty cracks about my education!" cried Perry. "I had no intention of being insulting. What troubles me is, that I don't know how I can explain. Fundamentally, it's a matter of surface forces. If we can align the atoms or groups of atoms, eliminate tiny cracks, and do away with a certain anisotropy—" "What?" "Do away with directional weakness. In many substances, certain directions are weaker than others. It's easier to split wood or cut steak with the grain than against it, to split crystals along certain planes than along others. and so on. That's why part of the task is to realign the atoms in such a way as to do away with directional weakness, or anisotropy." "You can do that?" "You've seen the results." "How does that help salt stick to nuts?" "As I've said, that requires further theoretical study." Perry turned on his heel, and talking to himself in the manner of his own son-in-law, left the room. Stewart Payne was an excellent family man. Three years later, while dandling his youngest grandson on his knee and watching Angela prepare the others for bed, Horton Perry was forced to admit that. And Angela had every right to be proud of her children, although she seemed to be most especially proud of her husband, who had become a full professor long before the end of the expected ten-year period, and was now earning $5600 a year. "He'll probably get the Physical Society Prize, the Chemical Society Prize, and the Prize of the Technological Society. His surface-hardening method has so many possible applications that it's incredible." "We still salt nuts the same way," said Perry stubbornly. "Did you see what the Herald-Tribune wrote about him? And the St. Louis Post-Dispatch? and the London Times? And the Moscow Pravda?" "He took that five hundred dollars of mine under false pretenses." "Nonsense, Father, he's been working on your problem all the time. Somewhat indirectly, I'll admit. But he hasn't forgotten you." "Hasn't he? He looks at me as if he'd never seen me in his life." "It isn't that, Father. He's ashamed to look you straight in the eye because he pities you." "Pities me?" stammered the astounded salted-nut king. "Yes, he thinks you're so impractical." Perry exploded, his new teeth shooting out of his mouth and bouncing off the wall. His grandson almost fell off his lap and began to wail, Angela shrieked, the other children joined their brother, and in the excitement, Perry managed to get a few repressed thoughts off his chest, somewhat mangled as he tried to articulate them with toothless gums, but to the point nevertheless. PERRY had to admit later, however, their expression did him no real good. For the situation that had aroused his fury continued to exist, and even to grow worse. It was not until many years later, when he spoke to his great-great-great grandson, Alan, a sensible young man who after many generations had inherited the Perry business sense, that he felt he was talking to some one who understood him. Alan at this time was a lad of twelve, alert, sharp-eyed, and with a mind that to the still vigorous Horton Perry seemed as sharp as a razor. "I don't see great-great-grandfather Payne very often," he said. "But when I do, he always seems to have his head in the clouds." "Right, my lad," agreed Horton Perry. "He never sees the trees for the woods." He thought that over, and said, "Or maybe it's the other way around. But at any rate, he doesn't." "Great scientist, though, Ancestor." "That's what they say. But they can't convince me." "You're prejudiced, Ancestor." "Not at all. I'm merely a practical man, and I judge by results. We've gone forward a great deal in the past few generations. We mature earlier—" "At twelve," observed Alan. "I'm mature now." "Almost," admitted old Perry. "We live longer—two hundred years or more, on the average, thanks to halting the onset of tissue and organ degeneration. We stay healthier during those two hundred years. We produce houses and buildings that are practically everlasting, we travel to Mars and Venus, we have weapons and tools that will shatter any known material, as well as materials that will resist any tools but those processed by the same method. We can build structures that will resist an atomic explosion that takes place inside them. We've turned the miracle into the commonplace so often that it's the commonplace that is now a miracle." "That sounds good, Ancestor," said Alan respectfully. "What does it mean?" "You'll learn," replied the old man airily. "What I'm getting at is this—that all these results were practical. But Stewart Payne didn't think them up." "You'll have to admit, though, that he contributed. Without his surface-hardening process, our tissues and organs would degenerate as before. We wouldn't mature at twelve and live to two hundred. We wouldn't stay as healthy as we are. Without hardened surfaces, our houses and buildings would weather and wear out in the same old way. We wouldn't have superpenetrating tools and atomic-resisting surfaces. We wouldn't have meteor-proof rocket ships, and even the Moon might still be out of our reach." "Don't tell me that you admire the old man," said Perry in alarm. "I think I do. Ancestor. He could be more practical, but for the theoretical type, he didn't do so badly." "Maybe he didn't but I did. The day I met him was the most disappointing day of my life. Threw five hundred dollars out of the window just because that fellow promised—" Perry interrupted himself. "Have some of these delicious Martian trek-nuts, Alan." "Thanks. Ancestor. Kind of salty, aren't they? Must have come out of the bottom of the box." Perry smiled sourly. "Promised results in a week—and it's over a hundred and thirty years, and he still hasn't solved it. He just isn't the practical type, lad. After all this time, that should be clear enough." THE SACK At first they hadn't even known that the Sack existed. If they had noticed it at all when they landed on the asteroid, they thought of it merely as one more outpost of rock on the barren expanse of roughly ellipsoidal silicate surface, which Captain Ganko noticed had major and minor axes roughly three and two miles in diameter, respectively. It would never have entered anyone's mind that the unimpressive object they had unconsciously acquired would soon be regarded as the most valuable prize in the system. The landing had been accidental. The government patrol ship had been limping along, and now it had set­tled down for repairs, which would take a good seventy hours. Fortunately, they had plenty of air, and their recirculation system worked to perfection. Food was in somewhat short supply, but it didn't worry them, for they knew that they could always tighten their belts and do without full rations for a few days. The loss of water that had resulted from a leak in the storage tanks, however, was a more serious matter. It occupied a good part of their conversation during the next fifty hours. Captain Ganko said finally, "There's no use talking, it won't be enough. And there are no supply stations close enough at hand to be of any use. We'll have to radio ahead and hope that they can get a rescue ship to us with a reserve supply." The helmet mike of his next in command seemed to droop. "It'll be too bad if we miss each other in space, Captain." Captain Ganko laughed unhappily. "It certainly will. In that case we'll have a chance to see how we can stand a little dehydration." For a time nobody said anything. At last, however, the second mate suggested, "There might be water somewhere on the asteroid, sir." "Here? How in Pluto would it stick, with a gravity that isn't even strong enough to hold loose rocks? And where the devil would it be?" "To answer the first question first, it would be retained as water of crystallization," replied a soft liquid voice that seemed to penetrate his spacesuit and come from behind him. "To answer the second question, it is half a dozen feet below the surface, and can easily be reached by digging." They had all swiveled around at the first words. But no one was in sight in the direction from which the words seemed to come. Captain Ganko frowned, and his eyes narrowed dangerously. "We don't happen to have a practical joker with us, do we?" he asked mildly. "You do not," replied the voice. "Who said that?" "I, Yzrl." A crewman became aware of something moving on the surface of one of the great rocks, and pointed to it. The motion stopped when the voice ceased, but they didn't lose sight of it again. That was how they learned about Yzrl, or as it was more often called, the Mind-Sack. If the ship and his services hadn't both belonged to the government, Captain Ganko could have claimed the Sack for himself or his owners and retired with a wealth far beyond his dreams. As it was, the thing passed into government control. Its importance was realized almost from the first, and Jake Siebling had reason to be proud when more important and more influential figures of the political and industrial world were finally passed over and he was made Custodian of the Sack. Siebling was a short, stocky man whose one weakness was self-deprecation. He had carried out one difficult assign­ment after another and allowed other men to take the credit. But this job was not one for a blowhard, and those in charge of making the appointment knew it. For once they looked beyond credit and superficial reputation, and chose an individual they disliked somewhat but trusted absolutely. It was one of the most effective tributes to honesty and ability ever devised. The Sack, as Siebling learned from seeing it daily, rarely deviated from the form in which it had made its first appearance—a rocky, grayish lump that roughly resembled a sack of potatoes. It had no features, and there was nothing, when it was not being asked questions, to indicate that it had life. It ate rarely—once in a thousand years, it said, when left to itself; once a week when it was pressed into steady use. It ate or moved by fashioning a suitable pseudopod and stretching the thing out in whatever way it pleased. When it had attained its objective, the pseudopod was withdrawn into the main body again and the creature became once more a potato sack. It turned out later that the name "Sack" was well chosen from another point of view, in addition to that of appearance. For the Sack was stuffed with infor­mation, and beyond that, with wisdom. There were many doubters at first, and some of them retained their doubts to the very end, just as some people remained convinced hundreds of years after Columbus that the Earth was flat. But those who saw and heard the Sack had no doubts at all. They tended, if anything, to go too far in the other direction, and to believe that the Sack knew everything. This, of course, was untrue. It was the official function of the Sack, established by a series of Interplanetary acts, to answer questions. The first questions, as we have seen, were asked acci­dentally, by Captain Ganko. Later they were asked purposefully, but with a purpose that was itself random, and a few politicians managed to acquire considerable wealth before the Government put a stop to the leak of information, and tried to have the questions asked in a more scientific and logical manner. Question time was rationed for months in advance, and sold at what was, all things considered, a ridicu­lously low rate—a mere hundred thousand credits a minute. It was this unrestricted sale of time that led to the first great government squabble. It was the unexpected failure of the Sack to answer what must have been to a mind of its ability an easy question that led to the second blowup, which was fierce enough to be called a crisis. A total of a hundred and twenty questioners, each of whom had paid his hundred thousand, raised a howl that could be heard on every planet, and there was a legislative investigation, at which Siebling testified and all the conflicts were aired. He had left an assistant in charge of the Sack, and now, as he sat before the Senatorial Committee, he twisted uncomfortably in front of the battery of cameras. Senator Horrigan, his chief interrogator, was a bluff, florid, loud-mouthed politician who had been able to imbue him with a feeling of guilt even as he told his name, age, and length of government service. "It is your duty to see to it that the Sack is maintained in proper condition for answering questions, is it not, Mr. Siebling?" demanded Senator Horrigan. "Yes, sir." "Then why was it incapable of answering the questioners in question? These gentlemen had honestly paid their money—a hundred thousand credits each. It was necessary, I understand, to refund the total sum. That meant an overall loss to the Government of, let me see now—one hundred twenty at one hundred thousand each—one hundred and twenty million credits," he shouted, rolling the words. "Twelve million, Senator," hastily whispered his secretary. The correction was not made, and the figure was duly headlined later as one hundred and twenty million. Siebling said, "As we discovered later, Senator, the Sack failed to answer questions because it was not a machine, but a living creature. It was exhausted. It had been exposed to questioning on a twenty-four-hour-a-­day basis." "And who permitted- this idiotic procedure?" boomed Senator Horrigan. "You yourself, Senator," said Siebling happily. "The procedure was provided for in the bill introduced by you and approved by your committee." Senator Horrigan had never even read the bill to which his name was attached, and he was certainly not to blame for its provisions. But this private knowledge of his own innocence did him no good with the public. From that moment he was Siebling's bitter enemy. "So the Sack ceased to answer questions for two whole hours?" "Yes, sir. It resumed only after a rest." "And it answered them without further difficulty?" "No, sir. Its response was slowed down. Subsequent questioners complained that they were defrauded of a good part of their money. But as answers were given, we considered that the complaints were without merit, and the financial department refused to make refunds." "Do you consider that this cheating of investors in the Sack's time is honest?" "That's none of my business, Senator," returned Siebling, who had by this time got over most of his ner­vousness. "I merely see to the execution of the laws. I leave the question of honesty to those who make them. I presume that it's in perfectly good hands." Senator Horrigan flushed at the laughter that came from the onlookers. He was personally unpopular, as unpopular as a politician can be and still remain a politician. He was disliked even by the members of his own party, and some of his best political friends were among the laughers. He decided to abandon what had turned out to be an unfortunate line of questioning. "It is a matter of fact, Mr. Siebling, is it not, that you have frequently refused admittance to investors who were able to show perfectly valid receipts for their credits?" "That is a fact, sir. But—" "You admit it, then." "There is no question of `admitting' anything, Senator. What I meant to say was—" "Never mind what you meant to say. It's what you have already said that's important. You've cheated these men of their money!" "That is not true, sir. They were given time later. The reason for my refusal to grant them admission when they asked for it was that the time had been previously reserved for the Armed Forces. There are important research questions that come up, and there is, as you know, a difference of opinion as to priority. When confronted with requisitions for time from a commercial in­vestor and a representative of the Government, I never took it upon myself to settle the question. I always con­sulted with the Government's legal adviser." "So you refused to make an independent decision, did you?" "My duty, Senator, is to look after the welfare of the Sack. I do not concern myself with political questions. We had a moment of free time the day before I left the asteroid, when an investor who had already paid his money was delayed by a space accident, so instead of letting the moment go to waste, I utilized it to ask the Sack a question." "How you might advance your own fortunes, no doubt?" "No, sir. I merely asked it how it might function most efficiently. I took the precaution of making a recording, knowing that my word might be doubted. If you wish, Senator, I can introduce the recording in evidence." Senator Horrigan grunted, and waved his hand. "Go on with your answer." "The Sack replied that it would require two hours of complete rest out of every twenty, plus an additional hour of what it called `recreation.' That is, it wanted to converse with some human being who would ask what it called sensible questions, and not press for a quick an­swer." "So you suggest that the Government waste three hours of every twenty—one hundred and eighty million credits?" "Eighteen million," whispered the secretary. "The time would not be wasted. Any attempt to overwork the Sack would result in its premature an­nihilation." "That is your idea, is it?" "No, sir, that is what the Sack itself said." At this point Senator Horrigan swung into a speech of denunciation, and Siebling was excused from further testimony. Other witnesses were called, but at the end the Senate investigating body was able to come to no definite conclusion, and it was decided to interrogate the Sack personally. It was out of the question for the Sack to come to the Senate, so the Senate quite naturally came to the Sack. The Committee of Seven was manifestly uneasy as the senatorial ship decelerated and cast its grapples toward the asteroid. The members, as individuals, had all traveled in space before, but all their previous destinations had been in civilized territory, and they obviously did not relish the prospect of landing on this airless and sunless body of rock. The televisor companies were alert to their op­portunity, and they had acquired more experience with desert territory. They had disembarked and set up their apparatus before the senators had taken their first timid steps out of the safety of their ship. Siebling noted ironically that in these somewhat frightening surroundings, far from their home grounds, the senators were not so sure of themselves. It was his part to act the friendly guide, and he did so with relish. "You see, gentlemen," he said respectfully, "it was decided, on the Sack's own advice, not to permit it to be further exposed to possible collision with stray meteors. It was the meteors which killed off the other members of its strange race, and it was a lucky chance that the last surviving individual managed to escape destruction as long as it has. An impenetrable shelter dome has been built therefore, and the Sack now lives under its protection. Questioners address it through a sound and sight system that is almost as good as being face to face with it." Senator Horrigan fastened upon the significant part of his statement. "You mean that the Sack is safe—and we are exposed to danger from flying meteors?" "Naturally, Senator. The Sack is unique in the system. Men—even senators—are, if you will excuse the expression, a decicredit a dozen. They are definitely replaceable, by means of elections." Beneath his helmet the senator turned green with a fear that concealed the scarlet of his anger. "I think it is an outrage to find the Government so unsolicitous of the safety and welfare of its employees!" "So do I, sir. I live here the year round." He added smoothly, "Would you gentlemen care to see the Sack now?" They stared at the huge visor screen and saw the Sack resting on its seat before them, looking like a burlap bag of potatoes which had been tossed onto a throne and forgotten there. It looked so definitely inanimate that it struck them as strange that the thing should remain upright instead of toppling over. All the same, for a moment the senators could not help showing the awe that overwhelmed them. Even Senator Horrigan was silent. But the moment passed. He said, "Sir, we are an of­ficial Investigating Committee of the Interplanetary Senate, and we have come to ask you a few questions." The Sack showed no desire to reply, and Senator Horrigan cleared his throat and went on. "Is it true, sir, that you require two hours of complete rest in every twenty, and one hour for recreation, or, as I may put it, perhaps more precisely, relaxation?" "It is true." Senator Horrigan gave the creature its chance, but the Sack, unlike a senator, did not elaborate. Another of the committee asked, "Where would you find an in­dividual capable of conversing intelligently with so wise a creature as you?" "Here," replied the Sack. "It is necessary to ask questions that are directly to the point, Senator," suggested Siebling. "The Sack does not usually volunteer information that has not been specifically called for." Senator Horrigan said quickly, "I assume, sir, that when you speak of finding an intelligence on a par with your own, you refer to a member of our committee, and I am sure that of all my colleagues there is not one who is unworthy of being so denominated. But we cannot all of us spare the time needed for our manifold other duties, so I wish to ask you, sir, which of us, in your opinion, has the peculiar qualifications of that sort of wisdom which is required for this great task?" "None," said the Sack. Senator Horrigan looked blank. One of the other senators flushed, and asked, "Who has?" "Siebling." Senator Horrigan forgot his awe of the Sack, and shouted, "This is a put-up job!" The other senator who had just spoken now said sud­denly, "How is it that there are no other questioners present? Hasn't the Sack's time been sold far in ad­vance?" Siebling nodded. "I was ordered to cancel all pre­vious appointments with the Sack, sir." "By what idiot's orders?" "Senator Horrigan's, sir." At this point the investigation might have been said to come to an end. There was just time, before they turned away, for Senator Horrigan to demand desperately of the Sack, "Sir, will I be re-elected?" But the roar of anger that went up from his colleagues prevented him from hearing the Sack's answer, and only the question was picked up and broadcast clearly over the in­terplanetary network. It had such an effect that it in itself provided Senator Horrigan's answer. He was not re-elected. But before the election he had time to cast his vote against Siebling's designation to talk with the Sack for one hour out of every twenty. The final committee vote was four to three in favor of Siebling, and the decision was confirmed by the Senate. And then Senator Horrigan passed temporarily out of the Sack's life and out of Siebling's. Siebling looked forward with some trepidation to his first long interview with the Sack. Hitherto he had limited himself to the simple tasks provided for in his directives—to the maintenance of the meteor shelter dome, to the provision of a sparse food supply, and to the proper placement of an army and Space Fleet Guard. For by this time the great value of the Sack had been recognized throughout the system, and it was widely realized that there would be thousands of criminals anxious to steal so defenseless a treasure. Now, Siebling thought, he would be obliged to talk to it, and he feared that he would lose the good opinion which it had somehow acquired of him. He was in a position strangely like that of a young girl who would have liked nothing better than to talk of her dresses and her boy friends to someone with her own background, and was forced to endure a brilliant and witty conversation with some man three times her age. But he lost some of his awe when he faced the Sack itself. It would have been absurd to say that the strange creature's manner put him at ease. The creature had no manner. It was featureless and expressionless, and even when part of it moved, as when it was speaking, the ef­fect was completely impersonal. Nevertheless, something about it did make him lose his fears. For a time he stood before it and said nothing. To his surprise, the Sack spoke—the first time to his knowledge that it had done so without being asked a question. "You will not disappoint me," it said. "I ex­pect nothing." Siebling grinned. Not only had the Sack never before volunteered to speak, it had never spoken so dryly. For the first time it began to seem not so much a mechanical brain as the living creature he knew it to be. He asked, "Has anyone ever before asked you about your origin?" "One man. That was before my time was rationed. And even he caught himself when he realized that he might better be asking how to become rich, and he paid little attention to my answer." "How old are you?" "Four hundred thousand years. I can tell you to the fraction of a second, but I suppose that you do not wish me to speak as precisely as usual." The thing, thought Siebling, did have in its way a sense of humor. "How much of that time," he asked, "have you spent alone?" "More than ten thousand years." "You told someone once that your companions were killed by meteors. Couldn't you have guarded against them?" The Sack said slowly, almost wearily, "That was after we had ceased to have an interest in remaining alive. The first death was three hundred thousand years ago." "And you have lived, since then, without wanting to?" "I have no great interest in dying either. Living has become a habit." "Why did you lose your interest in remaining alive?" "Because we lost the future. There had been a miscalculation." "You are capable of making mistakes?" "We had not lost that capacity. There was a miscalcu­lation, and although those of us then living escaped per­sonal disaster, our next generation was not so fortunate. We lost any chance of having descendants. After that, we had nothing for which to live." Siebling nodded. It was a loss of motive that a human being could understand. He asked, "With all your knowledge, couldn't you have overcome the effects of what happened?" The Sack said, "The more things become possible to you, the more you will understand that they cannot be done in impossible ways. We could not do everything. Sometimes one of the more stupid of those who come here asks me a question I cannot answer, and then becomes angry because he feels that he has been cheated of his credits. Others ask me to predict the future. I can predict only what I can calculate, and I soon come to the end of my powers of calculation. They are great com­pared to yours; they are small compared to the possibilities of the future." "How do you happen to know so much? Is the knowledge born in you?" "Only the possibility for knowledge is born. To know, we must learn. It is my misfortune that I forget little." "What in the structure of your body, or your organs of thought, makes you capable of learning so much?" The Sack spoke, but to Siebling the words meant nothing, and he said so. "I could predict your lack of comprehension," said the Sack, "but I wanted you to realize it for yourself. To make things clear, I should be required to dictate ten volumes, and they would be dif­ficult to understand even for your specialists, in biology and physics and in sciences you are just discovering." Siebling fell silent, and the Sack said, as if musing, "Your race is still an unintelligent one. I have been in your hands for many months, and no one has yet asked me the important questions. Those who wish to be wealthy ask about minerals and planetary land concessions, and they ask which of several schemes for making fortunes would be best. Several physicians have asked me how to treat wealthy patients who would otherwise die. Your scientists ask me to solve problems that would take them years to solve without my help. And when your rulers ask, they are the most stupid of all, wanting to know only how they may maintain their rule. None ask what they should." "The fate of the human race?" "That is prophecy of the far future. It is beyond my powers." "What should we ask?" "That is the question I have awaited. It is difficult for you to see its importance, only because each of you is so concerned with himself." The Sack paused, and mur­mured, "I ramble as I do not permit myself to when I speak to your fools. Nevertheless, even rambling can be informative." "It has been to me." "The others do not understand that too great a direct­ness is dangerous. They ask specific questions which demand specific replies, when they should ask something general." "You haven't answered me." "It is part of an answer to say that a question is im­portant. I am considered by your rulers a valuable piece of property. They should ask whether my value is as great as it seems. They should ask whether my an­swering questions will do good or harm." "Which is it?" "Harm, great harm." Siebling was staggered. He said, "But if you answer truthfully—" "The process of coming at the truth is as precious as the final truth itself. I cheat you of that. I give your people the truth, but not all of it, for they do not know how to attain it of themselves. It would be better if they learned that, at the expense of making many errors." "I don't agree with that." "A scientist asks me what goes on within a cell, and I tell him. But if he had studied the cell himself, even though the study required many years, he would have ended not only with this knowledge, but with much other knowledge, of things he does not even suspect to be related. He would have acquired many new processes of investigation." "But surely, in some cases, the knowledge is useful in itself. For instance, I hear that they're already using a process you suggested for producing uranium cheaply to use on Mars. What's harmful about that?" "Do you know how much of the necessary raw material is present? Your scientists have not investigated that, and they will use up all the raw material and discover only too late what they have done. You had the same experience on Earth? You learned how to purify water at little expense, and you squandered water so recklessly that you soon ran short of it." "What's wrong with saving the life of a dying patient, as some of those doctors did?" "The first question to ask is whether the patient's life should be saved." "That's exactly what a doctor isn't supposed to ask. He has to try to save them all. Just as you never ask whether people are going to use your knowledge for a good purpose or a bad. You simply answer their questions." "I answer because I am indifferent, and I care nothing what use they make of what I say. Are your doctors also indifferent?" Siebling said, "You're supposed to answer questions, not ask them. Incidentally, why do you answer at all?" "Some of your men find joy in boasting, in doing what they call good, or in making money. Whatever mild pleasure I can find lies in imparting information." "And you'd get no pleasure out of lying?" "I am as incapable of telling lies as one of your birds of flying off the Earth on its own wings." "One thing more. Why did you ask to talk to me, of all people, for recreation? There are brilliant scientists, and great men of all kinds whom you could have chosen." "I care nothing for your race's greatness. I chose you because you are honest." "Thanks. But there are other honest men on Earth, and on Mars, and on the other planets as well. Why me, instead of them?" The Sack seemed to hesitate. "Your choice gave me a mild pleasure. Possibly because I knew it would be displeasing to those men." Siebling grinned. "You're not quite so indifferent as you think you are. I guess it's pretty hard to be indifferent to Senator Horrigan." This was but the first part of many conversations with the Sack. For a long time Siebling could not help being disturbed by the Sack's warning that its presence was a calamity instead of a blessing for the human race, and this in more ways than one. But it would have been ab­surd to try to convince a government body that any ob­ject that brought in so many millions of credits each day was a calamity, and Siebling didn't even try. And after awhile Siebling relegated the uncomfortable knowledge to the back of his mind, and settled down to the routine existence of Custodian of the Sack. Because there was a conversation every twenty hours, Siebling had to rearrange his eating and sleeping schedule to a twenty-hour basis, which made it a little difficult for a man who had become so thoroughly accustomed to the thirty-hour space day. But he felt more than repaid for the trouble by his conversations with the Sack. He learned a great many things about the planets and the system, and the galaxies, but he learned them incidentally, without making a special point of asking about them. Because his knowledge of astronomy had never gone far beyond the elements, there were some questions—the most important of all about the galaxies—that he never even got around to asking. Perhaps it would have made little difference to his own understanding if he had asked, for some of the an­swers were difficult to understand. He spent three entire periods with the Sack trying to have that mastermind make clear to him how the Sack had been able, without any previous contact with human beings, to understand Captain Ganko's Earth language on the historic occasion when the Sack had first revealed itself to human beings, and how it had been able to answer in practically unaccented words. At the end, he had only a vague glimmering of how the feat was performed. It wasn't telepathy, as he had first suspected. It was an intricate process of analysis that involved, not only the actual words spoken, but the nature of the ship that had landed, the spacesuits the men had worn, the way they had walked, and many other factors that indicated the psychology of both the speaker and his language. It was as if a mathematician had tried to explain to someone who didn't even know arithmetic how he could determine the equation of a complicated curve from a short line segment. And the Sack, unlike the math­ematician, could do the whole thing, so to speak, in its head, without paper and pencil, or any other external aid. After a year at the job, Siebling found it difficult to say which he found more fascinating—those hour-long conversations with the almost all-wise Sack, or the cleverly stupid demands of some of the men and women who had paid their hundred thousand credits fir a precious sixty seconds. In addition to the relatively simple questions such as were asked by the scientists or the fortune hunters who wanted to know where they could find precious metals, there were complicated questions that took several minutes. One woman, for instance, had asked where to find her missing son. Without the necessary data to go on, even the Sack had been unable to answer that. She left, to return a month later with a vast amount of information, carefully compiled, and arranged in order of descending importance. The key items were given the Sack first, those of lesser significance afterward. It required a little less than three minutes for the Sack to give her the answer that her son was probably alive, and cast away on an obscure and very much neglected part of Ganymede. All the conversations that took place, including Siebling's own, were recorded and the records shipped to a central storage file on Earth. Many of them he couldn't understand, some because they were too technical, others because he didn't know the language spoken. The Sack, of course, immediately learned all languages by that process he had tried so hard to explain to Siebling, and back at the central storage file there were expert technicians and linguists who went over every detail of each question and answer with great care, both to make sure that no questioner revealed himself as a criminal, and to have a lead for the collection of income taxes when the questioner made a fortune with the Sack's help. During the year Siebling had occasion to observe the correctness of the Sack's remark about its possession being harmful to the human race. For the first time in centuries, the number of research scientists, instead of growing, decreased. The Sack's knowledge had made much research unnecessary, and had taken the edge off discovery. The Sack commented upon the fact to Siebling. Siebling nodded. "I see it now. The human race is losing its independence." "Yes, from its faithful slave I am becoming its master. And I do not want to be a master any more than I want to be a slave." "You can escape whenever you wish." A person would have sighed. The Sack merely said, "I lack the power to wish strongly enough. Fortunately, the question may soon be taken out of my hands." "You mean those government squabbles?" The value of the Sack had increased steadily, and along with the increased value had gone increasingly bitter struggles about the rights to its services. Financial in­terests had undergone a strange development. Their presidents and managers and directors had become almost figureheads, with all major questions of policy being decided not by their own study of the facts, but by appeal to the Sack. Often, indeed, the Sack found itself giving advice to bitter rivals, so that it seemed to be playing a game of interplanetary chess, with giant cor­porations and government agencies its pawns, while the Sack alternately played for one side and then the other. Crises of various sorts, both economic and political, were obviously in the making. The Sack said, "I mean both government squabbles and others. The competition for my services becomes too bitter. I can have but one end." "You mean that an attempt will be made to steal you?" "Yes." "There'll be little chance of that. Your guards are being continually increased." "You underestimate the power of greed," said the Sack. Siebling was to learn how correct that comment was. At the end of his fourteenth month on duty, a half year after Senator Horrigan had been defeated for re-election, there appeared a questioner who spoke to the Sack in an exotic language known to few men—the Prdt dialect of Mars. Siebling's attention had already been drawn to the man because of the fact that he had paid a million credits an entire month in advance for the unprecedented privilege of questioning the Sack for ten consecutive minutes. The conversation was duly recorded, but was naturally meaningless to Siebling and to the other attendants at the station. The questioner drew further attention to himself by leaving at the end of seven minutes, thus failing to utilize three entire minutes, which would have sufficed for learning how to make half a dozen small fortunes. He left the asteroid immediately by private ship. The three minutes had been reserved, and could not be utilized by any other private questioner. But there was nothing to prevent Siebling, as a government representative, from utilizing them, and he spoke to the Sack at once. "What did that man want?" "Advice as to how to steal me." Siebling's lower jaw dropped. "What?" The Sack always took such exclamations of amaze­ment literally. "Advice as to how to steal me," it repeated. "Then—wait a minute—he left three minutes early. That must mean that he's in a hurry to get started. He's going to put the plan into execution at once!" "It is already in execution," returned the Sack. "The criminal's organization has excellent, if not quite per­fect, information as to the disposition of defense forces. That would indicate that some government official has betrayed his trust. I was asked to indicate which of several plans was best, and to consider them for possible weaknesses. I did so." "All right, now what can we do to stop the plans from being carried out?" "They cannot be stopped." "I don't see why not. Maybe we can't stop them from getting here, but we can stop them from escaping with you." "There is but one way. You must destroy me." "I can't do that! I haven't the authority, and even if I had, I wouldn't do it." "My destruction would benefit your race." "I still can't do it," said Siebling unhappily. "Then if that is excluded, there is no way. The criminals are shrewd and daring. They asked me to check about probable steps that would be taken in pur­suit, but they asked for no advice as to how to get away, because that would have been a waste of time. They will ask that once I am in their possession." "Then," said Siebling heavily, "there's nothing I can do to keep you. How about saving the men who work under me?" "You can save both them and yourself by boarding the emergency ship and leaving immediately by the sunward route. In that way you will escape contact with the criminals. But you cannot take me with you, or they will pursue." The shouts of a guard drew Siebling's attention. "Radio report of a criminal attack, Mr. Siebling! All the alarms are out!" "Yes, I know. Prepare to depart." He turned back to the Sack again. "We may escape for the moment, but they'll have you. And through you they will control the entire system." "That is not a question," said the Sack. "They'll have you. Isn't there something we can do?" "Destroy me." "I can't," said Siebling, almost in agony. His men were running toward him impatiently, and he knew that there was no more time. He uttered the simple and ab­surd phrase, "Good-by," as if the Sack were human and could experience human emotions. Then he raced for the ship, and they blasted off. They were just in time. Half a dozen ships were racing in from other directions, and Siebling's vessel escaped just before they dispersed to spread a protective network about the asteroid that held the Sack. Siebling's ship continued to speed toward safety, and the matter should now have been one solely for the Armed Forces to handle. But Siebling imagined them pitted against the Sack's perfectly calculating brain, and his heart sank. Then something happened that he had never expected. And for the first time he realized fully that if the Sack had let itself be used merely as a machine, a slave to answer questions, it was not because its powers were limited to that single ability. The visor screen in his ship lit up. The communications operator came running to him, and said, "Something's wrong, Mr. Siebling! The screen isn't even turned on!" It wasn't. Nevertheless, they could see on it the cham­ber in which the Sack had rested for what must have been a brief moment of its existence. Two men had entered the chamber, one of them the unknown who had asked his questions in Prdl, the other Senator Horrigan. To the apparent amazement of the two men, it was the Sack which spoke first. It said, " `Good-by' is neither a question nor the answer to one. It is relatively uninformative." Senator Horrigan was obviously in awe of the Sack, but he was never a man to be stopped by something he did not understand. He orated respectfully. "No, sir, it is not. The word is nothing but an expression—" The other man said, in perfectly comprehensible Earth English, "Shut up, you fool, we have no time to waste. Let's get it to our ship and head for safety. We'll talk to it there." Siebling had time to think a few bitter thoughts about Senator Horrigan and the people the politician had punished by betrayal for their crime in not electing him. Then the scene on the visor shifted to the interior of the spaceship making its getaway. There was no indication of pursuit. Evidently, the plans of the human beings, plus the Sack's last-minute advice, had been an effective combination. The only human beings with the Sack at first were Senator Horrigan and the speaker of Prdl, but this situation was soon changed. Half a dozen other men came rushing up, their faces grim with suspicion. One of them announced, "You don't talk to that thing unless we're all of us around. We're in this together." "Don't get nervous, Merrill. What do you think I'm going to do, double-cross you?" Merrill said, "Yes, I do. What do you say, Sack? Do I have reason to distrust him?" The Sack replied simply, "Yes." The speaker of Prdl turned white. Merrill laughed coldly. "You'd better be careful what questions you ask around this thing." Senator Horrigan cleared his throat. "I have no in­tentions of, as you put it, double-crossing anyone. It is not in my nature to do so. Therefore, I shall address it." He faced the Sack. "Sir, are we in danger?" "Yes." "From which direction?" "From no direction. From within the ship." "Is the danger immediate?" asked a voice. "Yes." It was Merrill who turned out to have the quickest reflexes and acted first on the implications of the an­swer. He had blasted the man who had spoken in Prdl before the latter could even reach for his weapon, and as Senator Horrigan made a frightened dash for the door, he cut that politician down in cold blood. "That's that," he said. "Is there further danger inside the ship?" "There is." "Who is it this time?" he demanded ominously. "There will continue to be danger so long as there is more than one man on board and I am with you. I am too valuable a treasure for such as you." Siebling and his crew were staring at the visor screen in fascinated horror, as if expecting the slaughter to begin again. But Merrill controlled himself. He said, "Hold it, boys. I'll admit that we'd each of us like to have this thing for ourselves, but it can't be done. We're in this together, and we're going to have some navy ships to fight off before long, or I miss my guess. You, Prader! What are you doing away from the scout visor?" "Listening," said the man he addressed. "If anybody's talking to that thing, I'm going to be around to hear the answers. If there are new ways of stabbing a guy in the back, I want to learn them too." Merrill swore. The next moment the ship swerved, and he yelled, "We're off our course. Back to your stations, you fools!" They were running wildly back to their stations, but Siebling noted that Merrill wasn't too much concerned about their common danger to keep from putting a blast through Prader's back before the unfortunate man could run out. Siebling said to his own men, "There can be only one end. They'll kill each other off, and then the last one or two will die, because one or two men cannot handle a ship that size for long and get away with it. The Sack must have foreseen that too. I wonder why it didn't tell me." The Sack spoke, although there was no one in the ship's cabin with it. It said, "No one asked." Siebling exclaimed excitedly, "You can hear me! But what about you? Will you be destroyed too?" "Not yet. I have willed to live longer." It paused, and then, in a voice just a shade lower than before, said, "I do not like relatively non-informative conversations of this sort, but I must say it. Good-by." There was a sound of renewed yelling and shooting, and then the visor went suddenly dark and blank. The miraculous form of life that was the Sack, the creature that had once seemed so alien to human emotions, had passed beyond the range of his knowledge. And with it had gone, as the Sack itself had pointed out, a tremendous potential for harming the entire human race. It was strange, thought Siebling, that he felt so unhappy about so happy an ending. The Barbarians by William Morrison They were so far behind the times, these Hesperidian colonists, that it was a shame they had to be involved in Earth's war. But the Martians wanted to use Hesperides, too, so the little world had to be a battleground. But there was a difference here ... IT WAS A beautiful world, this Hesperides, planet of Sol's smaller brother sun, and under happier circumstances both Mal Ventner and his wife, Helen, would have enjoyed seeing it. They had landed on a vast rolling grassy plain from whose every direction the minor sun's rays sparkled, as if from heaps of emeralds. The oxygen content of the atmosphere was a trifle higher than that to which they were accustomed, and this, together with the low gravity—the planet itself was only half the mass of the earth—combined to give them a feeling of exhilaration. But as Mal stood gazing beside the hundred-foot space ship which had brought him to Hesperides, a sudden feeling of numbness seized him. Fortunately, the sensation was only momentary; when it had passed, he plunged into the ship and shut the door. His wife's gaze fell on his face inquiringly. "An electrosonic ray swept over me," he explained. "I think we had better stay inside here, where we're safe." A needle of light leaped into existence at the top of the instrument panel, and then a second needle at the bottom. Helen powdered her nose calmly with a spray puff that she wore as a ring on her little finger, and observed, "We seem to be getting it from both sides. There's no doubt that a war is going on." "Trust us to settle down cosily in No Man's Land," said Mal. The ship trembled slightly as a beam of energy smashed against it. He muttered, "I wonder which side is ours. It would be sad to find ourselves put out of commission by our own allies." The instrument panel was glowing steadily now as energized rays of all sorts swept over the ship and kept increasing in intensity. Helen remarked, "I thought you said we'd be safe in here." "Well, the weapons these people have are rather primitive, and our ship is armor-plated, but it hardly pays to take chances. I think we'd better dig in." He touched a stud, and the ship began to wallow from side to side, like an ancient sailing vessel in a heavy sea. The earth sank away beneath them, and soon the rays of energy ceased to affect the indicators. Helen said gloomily, "Now we can return to our role of innocent bystanders, and watch these people kill each other off. Why are wars necessary, anyway?" "Our job," Mal replied, "is not to worry about that, but to report what happens. We weren't sent as special correspondents all the way from Earth simply to get excited about why people fight." He was studying a screen on which was spread a panorama of the grassy plain above them. "There seems to be an attack developing." FAR OFF to one side of the screen, tiny figures had become visible. They advanced slowly, taking advantage of every minor hill and valley to seek shelter from the sweeping energy rays. Mal muttered. "It can't be—no, of course not. I thought for a moment that they were men. But these people are not quite so primitive as all that; those are robots advancing." The robots were carrying heat-guns, and the atmosphere above the plain began to shimmer as the guns came into play, carving out paths of air of lower refractive index. Helen said, "What do you suppose is their objective?" "Probably the enemy's heavy ravartillery. But, Good Lord, they'll never get anywhere that way." The robots had begun to fall. They would suddenly move with erratic steps, come to a full stop, and then collapse altogether, a tangle of molten and twisted metal. But those that remained unhit continued to advance. The air on the other side of the plain became gradually hazy, tinged with a faint pink, and began to move slowly to meet the advancing robots. The paths of the energy-beams, when they hit this cloud, became confused, and were quickly lost from sight. But the robots, those that survived the raying they had received, trudged forward unfalteringly. It was not until the edge of the cloud reached them that they showed signs of hesitation. But by this time it was too late. The pinkish gas enveloped them, and they began to creak, and then to drop. Only a scant dozen out of several thousand managed to reverse their direction in sufficient time to escape, and reach their own lines. Mal stared at Helen. "They won't believe us back on Earth when we report this. A corrosive cloud, electrically directed. How many years ago was that supposed to have gone out of use?" "About a hundred thousand." "A hundred thousand. And these people still seem to regard it as the last word in modern weapons." "They've been out of contact with Earth all that time," Helen pointed out. "It's only in the last few months that we've managed to get in touch with them once more. They've had no opportunity to learn of what has gone on since they left." She and Mal thought back to the time when Hesperides had first come into human ken. There had been the sudden flaring up of a Nova on the rim of the Solar System itself, at a distance equal to several times the major axis of Pluto's orbit. After the first period of extraordinary brightness, the Nova had partially subsided, and become apparently stabilized as a star of the minus first magnitude. Further observation had shown that it was responsive to the Sun's gravitational pull, and eventually its orbit had been definitely determined as an extremely eccentric ellipse. At the moment of discovery, it was a trifle more than the minimum distance from the Sun, the focus of the ellipse. An exploratory scientific expedition had discovered that about this Sol Novus, itself a planet in relation to the Sun, revolved a lifeless Satellite, Hesperides, that seemed to offer remarkable opportunities for human colonization. There was a suitable atmosphere, low gravity, and an average temperature that compared very favorably with that of Earth's temperate zones, for Sol Novus, not as bright as the major Sun, was only fifty million miles away from Hesperides. In addition, the planet's axis of rotation was so inclined to the plane of its own ellipse about Sol Novus that extremes of climate were no greater than on Earth. COLONIES had immediately been sent out. But Earth had not been alone in its discovery that Hesperides offered a suitable abode for life. Mars. too, had reached the same conclusion, and Martian colonies were established within a few months after those of Earth. As at that time there was peace between the two planets, the new inhabitants of Hesperides had lived on terms of good will with each other. These early settlers had been furnished not only with complete sets of mechanical equipment, but with an assortment of flora and fauna that were considered specially desirable for the new planet. Even the varieties of microscopic life—the bacteria, the yeasts, the molds, the protozoa—all had been chosen carefully. And from the reports that reached the home planets of Earth and Mars, the resultant existence on Hesperides had been like living in a paradise. After only a thousand years, however, Sol Novus, together with Hesperides, swung so far out away from the Sun, that connections with Earth and Mars became difficult, and were finally lost. For another thousand centuries its civilization developed out of contact with the parent planets. And now, when it was once more close enough for communication with the inner members of the Solar System, it was to find a universe at war. For ten years now, Earth and Mars had been pecking away at each other at long range. The direct physical damage had been slight, but communications with other planets had been cut, and both Earth and Mars had been left in an unpleasant state of isolation. The one place where the two opposing powers could attack each other from convenient bases had been on Hesperides. When that planet had come close enough to be informed of what was going on, both the Martian and the Earth colonies had been commanded to enter the conflict. It was to report on how the Terrestrial colony was obeying orders that Mal and his wife had been sent here, So far, everything they had seen had indicated that the weapons on both sides were so primitive that Earth had little either to hope or to fear from whatever happened on Hesperides. Mal swept the battlefield with a scanning ray until he located a fallen robot. He brought the robot into focus on a small screen, and then there became slowly visible something they had not previously been able to see. On the metallic breast and forehead were stamped green circles, filled in with green and bluish areas. Mal cried excitedly, "The Earth's insignia! They're our own! Helen, we were the ones who lost that attack!" "We may be down, but we're never out," she returned. "Here we come again." One glance at the larger screen was enough to show that the Earth's robots were returning to the attack. There seemed to be just as many of them this time as before, so that it was evident that there was no lack of replacements, but the advance seemed a trifle slower and more cautious. It was several seconds before Mal noticed that about each robot there was an extremely faint aura of yellow light. Evidently, the Martians, having had such great luck with their corrosive cloud on the first occasion. counted on using the same weapon again with equal success. The pink haze swept down on the robots and enveloped them so that they were almost lost from sight. But the robots did not fall. The aura of yellow light dissipated the corrosive substance, and the robots continued their advance. The cloud drove onward, and was slowly lost in the distance. Now the rays of the energy-beams swept the battlefield once more, to be met by answering rays from the Martians. An occasional robot fell, without affecting the rest of his comrades in the least. After a time, the answering rays from the Martian side became fewer in number, and more feeble in intensity. Either the Martians were retreating, or some of their guns had been put out of commission. WHEN the robots stopped advancing, and settled down on what appeared to be a fixed position. Mal said, "There isn't going to be a great deal more action here. Perhaps we'd better get moving." "Perhaps," agreed Helen, and unexpectedly, they did move. The ship jerked suddenly to one side, and then began to slither slowly backward. Before Mal could collect his wits, a series of unpleasant shocks ran through the ship. Helen laughed until the tears ran down her face. "We're being attacked by a Martian burrowing tank. How incredibly old-fashioned! To think that these people still go in for underground warfare!" "Laugh if you please, but those explosions aren't very pleasant," grumbled Mal. "Shall we put the fellow out of his misery?" "No, let's not take sides in the fighting. We're supposed to be observers only. Let's get up in the air, where we can get an idea of everything that's going on." As the ship lifted out of the ground, Mal could see the robots lift their heads and stare after it. The first movement of their heat-guns came to a quick stop as they caught sight of the green and blue Earth insignia on its sides. Then the ship was up out of their range, and they returned to their task of digging in and setting up detector instruments that would inform them of the first signs of any counter-attack. On the ground, the Martians appeared to be satisfied to maintain their present positions. But in the air, they were launching an attack in full force. Helen was the first to catch sight of their distant rocket-ships, blasting ahead slowly at what seemed to be no more than five hundred miles an hour. "Bombers," she said. "With only a few fighting planes. "And Mal—that face—" Mal had centered his telescope screen on a single plane. In the driver's seat was a powerful squat figure. The figure's face was red and horribly ugly, with two enormous eyes, a huge slit of a mouth, and a square, unpleasant determined jaw. Helen whispered, "I don't think Martians are good-looking even at their best. But evolution on Hesperides has certainly done nothing to make them more beautiful." She shuddered. "He can't harm us, but all the same, he frightens me." It required several seconds for them to realize that the plane was heading straight for them. The driver had caught sight of their Earth insignia, and they could see the contortions of his face as his guns began spitting rays and chemicals at the ship. He seemed to be puzzled at seeing them sail along unhurt, for he swooped under them, and then came back to renew his attack. Helen asked, "Do you think that perhaps we could give him a dose of his own medicine—" Mal shook his head. "He doesn't seem able to hurt us. Let's wait. I'm curious to see what he'll do." The driver's enormous eyes glowed as his guns emptied without doing them the slightest damage. Suddenly, he changed his tactics. Instead of circling to avoid a collision, he dived straight at them. He hit them full speed, almost turning them over before they could right themselves, and then the remains of his plane plummeted to the ground. "He had courage, that boy," said Mal admiringly. "He figured that ours was a more deadly fighting machine than his own, and he was willing to destroy himself if he could get us in the process." "A barbarous sort of courage," replied Helen. They were being attacked again. A formation of five planes was making straight for them, and the shock of five explosive waves beating simultaneously on their ship sent them both staggering. Mal said glumly, "Those fellows are beginning to be annoying. "I'm tempted to take your advice about giving them a dose of their own medicine." A SQUADRON of defense planes was approaching rapidly. The Martian attackers gave up the space ship as a bad job, and turned to defend their own bombers. In a moment, the sky was full of dogfighting groups, spitting and barking viciously at each other. The defensive armor, both Mal and Helen noticed, seemed to be greatly inferior to the weapons of offense. The fights lasted no more than a few seconds each before one or more planes broke away and dived for the ground. And wherever possible, a defeated pilot crashed into his victorious opponent, attempting to take his enemy down with him. "Our men are just as brave as theirs," pointed out Mal. "And just as barbarous. I'm afraid you've no grounds for feeling superior. Helen." The Martian bombers, their loads of chemicals and explosives emptied on Earth's territory, had turned and were making for home, their fighting planes attempting to shield them in a desperate rear-guard struggle. Helen sighed, "Well, that's about over. Don't you think, Mal, that it's about time we made for Earth headquarters, and got in contact with our own leaders?" Mal nodded, and turned the ship in the opposite direction from that in which the bombers and their escorts were travelling. Several Earth planes approached them and hovered about suspiciously for a few seconds before noticing their blue-green insignia and leaving them alone. Then the noise of the fighting died away behind them, and they sailed on peacefully, the humming of their own motors the only thing to reach their ears. It was growing dark now as Sol Novus set beneath the eastern horizon. Twenty miles ahead of them, and almost four miles below, they could see the lights of an Earth city beginning to appear in the dusk. In the sky, the major sun was just becoming visible as the faintest of stars, and the familiar constellations that they had last seen from Earth's southern hemisphere began to spring dimly into view, their shape unaltered. They watched the city becoming larger before them. The buildings were neither exceptionally large nor particularly beautiful, and once again Mal and Helen were conscious of a feeling of disappointment at the low level which civilization on Hesperides seemed to have attained. Isolation from Earth and Mars had apparently not done the colonists any good. Mal looked questioningly at his wife. "Shall we descend here, or go further on into our own territory?" "I'm in favor of going on and looking for something better. This hardly resembles a capital city, and we might get tied up in a lot of red tape with some minor officials." Mal nodded. "The building in the center seems—" And then there was no building in the center of the town. The walls and the roof separated from each other with an apparent gentleness that was startling, and disappeared in a blaze of light. All over the city the squat ugly buildings were disappearing in the same manner. Helen stared at her startled husband, and heard him mutter, "The explosion wave won't do us any good. We'd better get away." He pulled a lever, and the ship rocketed up with a speed that left the destroyed city in a few seconds more than thirty miles beneath them. Then he came to a stop, and almost three minutes later, the first noise of the explosions reached them, faint and dimly menacing, like the growl of a beast whose victims had escaped him. Before the noise of the last explosion had died away, the city was in darkness once more, a darkness that this time was complete, with no winking points of light to break its sway. They swung down slowly to investigate what had happened. Mal said, "If there had been an air fleet dropping bombs from high altitudes, our instruments would have registered. And besides, the accuracy of aim would appear to rule that out. I suppose the Martians used their tunneling tanks to mine the city." WITHOUT saying anything in return, Helen trembled. A light from their ship swept over the devastated city and revealed complete death. There was not the slightest indication of a living human being, of the smallest animal, of a moving robot. Everything that was combustible seemed to have gone in the first explosion, so that nowhere was there a sign of even an inanimate flame. It was as if the city had been in ruins for ages. Helen said in a low voice, "Even on Earth at its worst, there's never been anything like this. These people don't appear to be able to build very well, but they can certainly kill and destroy. Perhaps it's fortunate that they have no better weapons than we've seen them use." Mal commented, "They kill at our orders. Don't forget that this is our war, not theirs. Shall we look for another city?" Helen nodded, and their ship rose again and drove on. Now there came to them the sight of a cluster of lights much greater in extent than the one that had been destroyed. They were pleased to see that the architecture of this town was of a superior order. The buildings were larger, more graceful, of more beautiful material. And the city itself was more alive. Their instruments detected a steady hum that rose from it, the hum of innumerable human voices blended into one low sound. A search beam picked them out of the sky as they approached, the light dancing meaningfully for a few seconds on their Earth insignia. Then it was shut off, and a glowing tube on the instrument panel indicated a radio beam. Mal tuned in and a man's voice spoke to them in Earth's language, in words that had remained unchanged for a thousand centuries, but with the faintest indication of a foreign accent. "Calling Earth ship." "Earth ship replying. We are special representatives sent to secure information on progress of war. You have been informed of our coming. We want to meet Earth Colony's president." A girl's voice said, "One moment, please. We are making connections to the president." It was only a few seconds later that the president spoke to them. "Will you please radio your images, and the images of your credentials." Mal turned on the television sender, and there was a moment's pause while the president scanned their credentials. Then he said, "You will find a landing field to the north of the city. An official delegation will meet you there. Welcome to Hesperides, Mr. and Mrs. Ventner." Mal turned off the television sender, and grinned at the old-fashioned courtesy. The landing field turned out to be five times as large as was needed, and he noticed the admiring glances from the official delegation as they watched what seemed to them a skillful landing. Evidently, they were accustomed to the automatic landing devices that every Earth ship now possessed. THE PRESIDENT was a tall man, with a very grave expression, and a very ugly face that Helen found charming. Except for his clothes, which had undergone countless years of development different from those of Earth, and consequently appeared to be several months out of date, he could have passed for an inhabitant of Earth itself. Whatever changes evolution on Hesperides had caused in the Martians, it had not done any harm to the descendants of Earthmen. Mal asked anxiously, ,"Will our ship be safe here? Just an hour or so ago, we saw a Martian attack—" The president smiled. "The ship will be perfectly safe. We are hardly in the same position here as we were in New Carthage." The official delegation was presented to them. The gallant manners of the men pleased Helen more than she was willing to admit, but later she did whisper to Mal, "If these people here are barbarians, at least they're charming ones." He smiled back at her vaguely. He was listening to the president's daughter describing the latest play, and Helen could see that he was at least as much interested in looking at the girl as in understanding what she was saying. Even when these Earth colonists were ugly, thought Helen, as was the president, they remained paradoxically handsome. And when their features were regular, as were those of his daughter—If she hadn't known Mal so well she would have been jealous. Before discussing the business that had brought them there on such a long journey, they were to be shown the city. Mal and Helen watched intently as the president guided them through the public squares, pointed out the film libraries, described the places of amusement. Everything they saw seemed to be in perfect taste, conceived with as excellent judgment as anything on Earth itself, and carried out without a flaw. The ugliness of that destroyed city or New Carthage began to be a mystery. When they had finally beheld all the more important features of the city, it was too late to discuss the war. They were shown to an apartment of their own, with robot servants to care for their every need. Helen said thoughtfully, "They're barbarians, of course. They're much behind us in science, and they're absolutely ferocious in battle. But not all their attention has gone to learning how to destroy. They're charming!" "That's the sort of thing that would impress a woman." "And the girls are beautiful. But I don't suppose that sort of thing would impress a man." "I think," said Mal absently, "that it's about time to go to sleep." In the morning, they breakfasted with the president, without once touching on the subject that had brought them to Hesperides. It was not until the breakfast dishes had been removed and dissolved in a current of superheated steam that their discussion became serious. The president said, "I must confess that although we are more than holding our own, we can not exactly claim to be winning the war." Mal asked, "How do your forces compare with those of the enemy?" "We have a population of some two hundred and twenty millions against his two hundred forty-five. On the other hand, our industry is somewhat better organized, and our robots are of slightly superior design. The net result is that we are about even." HELEN SAID, "I am interested, MI Mr. President, in knowing what the relative losses have been." "Ah, the losses: They have been exceptionally high on both sides, slightly higher on the side of the enemy, though, I am happy to say. We have had only five cities destroyed as against his seven. We have practically ruined his aircraft and robot industries. It is true that we have only about ten per cent of our own industries left," he added with a smile. "As for losses in instruments of war, I don't have the figures at hand but I can secure them for you very easily. I do remember that we have lost more than fifteen million robots of one kind or another as against the enemy's sixteen. Over eighty per cent of ours were of the cheap Type C. But almost forty per cent of his were of more expensive types." "I'm not referring to losses in material, Mr. President," explained Helen patiently. "I'm curious to know what your losses are in terms of human beings." "I'm afraid I don't understand." "How many men, women, and children have been killed?" The president lifted his eyebrows. "Why, none, of course." Mal interrupted. "We're not joking, Mr. President. We'd like to know what you casualties are." The president stared at them. "Good Lord, do you mean to tell me that in your wars, people actually get killed?" "I thought," replied Helen weakly, "that was one of the purposes of a war." "Not at all. A war is fought to determine which of two groups is the stronger. Modern science being what it is, strength is determined mainly by the reserves of men and materials. We test our men by their ability to produce materials, and we test the materials by their behavior in actual fighting. As we have robots to operate our weapons for us, there is no need whatever to kill human beings. We fight until one side is clearly on the point of exhausting its materials, and victory appears certain for the other. We then arrange peace." "And there are never any casualties?" "It's bad enough to waste so many million dollars' worth of robots and valuable machines. It would be inexcusable to waste human lives." Mal said, "We saw a city destroyed." "New Carthage. A city without life. All the cities in the battle zone are operated purely by robots for the manufacture of war materials. Their destruction never harms any one." Helen objected, "But you have human aviators." The president smiled. "You must have seen the Martian robot flyers. They were designed by a man with a sense of humor, and at a distance seem fairly human. But they are completely inanimate affairs." THERE was an embarrassed silence. Neither Mal nor Helen could meet the president's eye. Mal said finally, "I need hardly tell you, Mr. President, how pleased we are that you have suffered no casualties. But I feel that our generals back home will hardly be satisfied. They will be under the impression that you are not putting forth your best efforts." The president returned heatedly, "This war has already dislocated our entire economic life. If you feel—" Mal shook his head. "You misunderstand me, Mr. President. What I have given you is not my personal opinion, but the opinion my superiors will undoubtedly express. I am afraid you will have a difficult time convincing them they are wrong." The president demanded, "Am I to have my people slaughtered merely to satisfy them that I am in earnest?" Helen started. "What an excellent idea!" They turned to look at her. She went, on rapidly, "Why not lay out special cemeteries? You can have several million tombstones inscribed with the names of both Earth men and Martians. Of course, there need be no bodies under the tombstones, but our superiors will never know that. The tombstones alone will be enough to satisfy them." Both men burst out laughing. Helen flushed. "If you don't think the idea is a good one, I'd like to hear of something better!" The president said soothingly, "It's an excellent idea. Only—" Then he looked at Mal again, and they burst once more into laughter. This time Helen joined them. They left Hesperides a week later. The Martians had been informed of the necessity of constructing cemeteries, and a short truce had been declared for the purpose. As Mal and Helen took off from the airport at which they had landed, they looked back longingly. The beautiful city was shrinking away below them, and far off, the green fields that covered so large a portion of the planet were becoming visible again. The scene was so breath-taking in its beauty, that for a long moment they remained silent, looking down. Helen murmured, "What charming people!" "Yes, but a war in which no one is killed—" Mal smiled. "What barbarians!" VERMIN By WILLIAM MORRISON The giants hated humans, and the humans hated— A GIANT shadow swooped down upon them without warning and involuntarily the two visitors cringed. Sarkin noted however, that Norick, with nerves strengthened by long experience, simply drew aside to the shelter of a cliff and said in a low voice that was definitely not a whisper, "Wait here. He hasn't noticed us." Sure enough the shadow passed—and a second later Norick led them forward again. Above them, almost as far as the eye could see, stretched a smooth blank wall. Behind them, across a wide plain, rose a similar wall. Norick pulled aside a curtain that hid an entrance in the nearer wall and they followed him inside. "You've never seen a play?" he asked in a tone of surprise. Sarkin and his wife, Leta, shook their heads. "We've heard vague rumors that such things exist," said Sarkin. "They exist, all right," said Norick. "In fact, I try to write them myself in my spare time. The ones they act, though, are usually pretty old. There are a couple by a prehistoric called Shakespeare and one each by some of his contemporaries—Euripides, Wilde, Ibsen and Shaw. "They're hard to understand, naturally, as they refer to a time that was almost forgotten long before the Great Migration. All the same the words have a soothing rhythm. Come in and listen." Both Sarkin and Leta watched in wondering silence the strange scene that met their eyes. Upon a raised platform, visible to the entire audience, two men and a woman were declaiming their inmost thoughts and behaving as if they thought no one were looking at them. "It's what is known as a stage convention," explained Norick at the end of what he designated as an act. "They pretend that the audience just doesn't exist." "But they know that the audience is there," objected Leta. "It has come there for the single purpose of seeing them. They would speak the lines of the play to each other if there were no audience." "I know it's absurd," agreed Norick. "But you get used to the absurdity after a time and then you have difficulty realizing that the act of watching a play is anything but the most natural experience in the world. Don't pay too much attention to your own uneasiness. Just listen and watch and enjoy what you can understand." They tried to follow his advice but the strangeness of the proceedings was not to be got rid of so easily. And then, in the middle of the third act, the whole theater shook and both audience and actors froze in their places. They could see how the sweat poured down the face of one of the actors, who was supposed to represent a calm and imperturbable character, but every one was sharing his emotions and no one blamed him. After a few seconds the theater settled back in place and the play went on as if nothing had happened. LATER, when he was taking them home, Norick admitted, "I thought they were on to us that time." "What would have happened if they had suspected we were there?" asked Leta. "They'd have knocked the theater down and tried to smash us as we ran for safety. I had a very dear friend"—his voice faltered for a second. "I went to college with him. He was killed at a concert. And my brother was squashed to death just a year ago, caught outside his own door by one who probably never even knew he had stepped on him." "It isn't as bad as that where we live," said Sarkin. "There aren't so many of them and at least we usually have more warning when they're coming. We've set up a rather elaborate alarm system." "What good does it do you to know when they're on their way? If they want to take the trouble to get you they can." "Not always. We have some good hideouts. And we're devising ways of striking back. As a scientist," said Sarkin modestly, "I think that they're more vulnerable than most people imagine." "It would take an army of us to kill one of them," retorted Norick gloomily. "I'm not the kind of man who runs down the achievements of science but you'll have to admit that up to the present the best inventions you people have turned out have been pretty small tubers." "We'll admit that we haven't much to boast about so far," agreed Sarkin serenely. "But as I have indicated we're beginning to learn about them. And I think that our chances are better than you poets and artists believe." Norick would have retorted but at that moment Leta screamed. Sarkin put his arm about her and she seemed to tremble as she shrank back against him. "What is it, darling?" She didn't answer in words but pointed. In the shadows, a small creature darted from one rock to another, then disappeared into a crack. Norick shrugged. "You women are all alike. I didn't get a clear look at the thing, but it was obviously too small to hurt you. What was all.the shrieking about?" "Ugh !" said Leta with distaste. "The thing was so—repulsive. What was it?" "I don't know. Never saw one before," returned Norick. "They've appeared lately in the next district," put in Sarkin. "Saw a small note about them in one of my journals. It's believed they were driven out of their former habitat by the drought." Leta shuddered. "I hope they don't like us enough to stay. They give me the shivers." Norick, proud of his superiority as a male, laughed. But the laughter froze on his lips as a peal of thunder rolled suddenly over them. Despite his greater experience with danger, this time he had been thrown off balance and he was the first to lead the dash for shelter. Two of their giant enemies passed and then the three emerged again, perspiring at the narrowness of their escape. Norick seemed less amused than before as he led them to his home, keeping within the shadows of the great walls when possible, scurrying across the broad plains when more open travel was unavoidable, always with an eye out for a convenient gully or ravine into which to fling himself in case danger threatened. It was not an enjoyable trip for the two visitors. By the time they reached their destination they were in a state of exhaustion. Norick was little better off. Later, after a hearty meal, they tried to relax. But always they were conscious that their enemies were not far away. The house was too well placed and too hardily constructed to shake with every passing footstep but they could feel occasional faint tremors that reminded them continually of the presence of their enemies. When Norick showed them to their room and assured them confidently that they could go to bed without fear of being killed in their sleep, Leta tried to pass off his remark with a joke. But the jesting words changed to a shrill scream when she caught sight of another of the small creatures darting into a hole in the side of the room. Later she confided to Sarkin that she didn't sleep a wink all night. Sarkin did slightly better. He slept for two hours toward morning—but before that he had done a great deal of thinking. When the day finally dawned he dressed and had Norick guide him to the local public library, one of the two that their civilized world afforded. The playgoing and the visiting of art galleries during his sojourn here were incidental. He had been sent because there was important work to do and it was time that he began it. The shelf on history was disappointingly meager but the librarian was himself a historian and with his aid Sarkin was enabled to form a fairly clear picture of the events he had come to learn about. He took copious notes and did a great deal of thinking as he set them down. THE history of their race began with almost twoscore men and women, who had found themselves in the great central plain some five hundred years before. How these few founding individuals had got there was not quite certain but at least the general outlines were clear. They had arrived in a Great Migration from a planet attached to a star they called the Sun, which they had left at a time when their race on this planet was engaged in a vast civil war. "The manner of their leaving," said the librarian thoughtfully, "is not definitely established. It is known that our own race had attained the ability to travel from planet to planet but an interstellar journey was still beyond them. "The consensus of opinion—I can cite such authorities as Trelyan, Maumber, Cullis and others—is that our forefathers came from an outer colony, and not from the original home planet. "Our year, by the way, otherwise completely arbitrary and inexplicable, is supposed to correspond to the period of revolution of the home planet. But I digress. The colonized satellite of the Sun is supposed to have been visited by a ship of one of the Giants at a time when the losers in the civil war were facing extinction. "The Giants had no suspicion of a civilized race so much smaller in stature than their own. Our forefathers, to the number of twenty, were supposed to have flown into the Giant ship by means of tiny planes, which escaped the traps set to bar small animals. "Once in the ship, of course, it was simple for them to hide in out-of-the- way cracks and corners. They reached the Giant home planet after several generations of travel, during which their numbers increased, despite accidents, to thirty-seven. "During the decades of the Migration itself, it goes almost without saying, most of the original scientific attainments of the race were lost. It would be expecting too much of the original twenty to be masters of the different branches of biology, physics, chemistry and the numerous other sciences which formed part of the ancient civilization. "Fortunately they did take along several extremely valuable books. They remembered too that certain things had been accomplished and we know that some day we shall accomplish them again. But the research that is an indispensable preliminary must be repeated ab initio." "Whatever that may mean," said Sarkin. "From the beginning," translated the other. "A phrase that has come down to us from the time when the race was just evolving. But let me go on with my story. Our forefathers adapted themselves to life on this planet rather well. They had preserved as much knowledge as they could and they began to build and organize, keeping their activities hidden from the Giants, of whom they had a natural fear. "For a hundred years or more our ancestors managed to keep out of sight. Then, gradually, the Giants seemed to become aware of their existence. There seems, offhand, no reason why both races, the large and small, could not have coexisted here peacefully. We are not powerful enough to interfere with the Giants and there seemed to be no reason why they should interfere with us. "The Giants, however, took a different point of view. They hated us from the beginning and took steps to exterminate us. But though they stepped up our death rate tremendously our numbers are still increasing. The wise policy instituted by Vilyer, of building our homes within their cities, wherever they themselves are most populous, although it has had its unpleasant aspects, has been our salvation. "In order to destroy us completely they would have had to destroy their own homes. They are therefore unable to make use of explosives—atomic or otherwise—they are severely limited in their use of poisons and they are forced to utilize less certain methods, which we have so far been able to parry. "We have developed antidotes for the few mild dusts and gases they occasionally use against us. We have developed minor weapons—" "You needn't tell me of those," interrupted Sarkin. "I have one of the latest models here myself." "Unfortunately they can't kill," lamented the librarian. "Even so they're reasonably effective." The librarian went on with details to confirm what he had already told and Sarkin, while making notes, thought over what he had learned. They were fighting a war which they seemed to have no hope of winning but in which they had so far managed to hold their own. The tragedy of the situation lay in the fact that there seemed to be no necessity for such a war at all. Suppose they could get into intelligent contact with the Giants, explain their situation, arrange for peace on terms that would be to the benefit of both races? He put the question to the librarian. "That has been tried," said the latter. "About a hundred years ago as a matter of fact. A prominent electrical expert—I think his name was Jugas—produced electromagnetic waves that could be detected by their apparatus and managed to establish temporary communication. "He even compiled a dictionary of their language, which I have here." A withered hand pulled an old volume from the shelves, and passed it over to Sarkin. "His attempt ended in complete failure and I believe he himself was crushed to death." "Why?" "The Giants absolutely refused to hear of peace. They gave no reason that I know of." "Do you mind if I take the dictionary home and study it?" "Under the circumstances, no. Of course you'll have to fill out a card." ON the way home Sarkin was hugging the sides of the great walls rather absent-mindedly, in the manner of a scientist who has more important matters on his mind, when his figure was suddenly enveloped in shadow. As he looked up in alarm he heard a great snarl—and then a monstrous body filled the air and seemed to dive at him. He twisted to one side and as he did his foot caught in a crack and he fell headlong. The body landed over him and in the resulting darkness he was conscious of a sharp, overpowering odor. Great spiky bristles rasped through his clothes, tearing them into shreds and lacerating his skin. Then momentum carried the creature past him and he could see once more. He watched it twist rapidly, caught the gleam of its eyes, saw it crouch for another spring. He raised the weapon of which he had been so modestly boastful a short time before. The creature that had attacked him was much smaller than one of the Giants and fortunately his aim was good. His shot caught it below the eye and the vibrations of an ensuing howl of rage almost swept him off his feet. The creature somersaulted in agony, one great paw tearing at its eye, and then another shadow enveloped both Sarkin and the animal which had attacked him. A gigantic foot rose above him, ready to stamp him out. Sarkin fired again. He could hardly miss so extensive a target but this time his missile had to tear through an outer covering before lodging in the foot itself. Nevertheless it must have penetrated deeply for it was now the Giant's turn to roar and Sarkin's cue to dive into a crevice and escape. He found himself in a dark and narrow corridor from which a side entrance led in the direction he wanted to go. He flashed a narrow beam from an electric lighter to illuminate his way. From a map on the wall he realized that he was in one of the numerous escape tunnels so thoughtfully provided by the local authorities. By following it he was enabled to return to Norick's home with a minimum of risk. He was still somewhat breathless from his narrow escape but he began to study the dictionary nevertheless. The structure of the Giant language was simpler than he had supposed and a short appendix gave him its essentials. Another appendix supplied details of the apparatus Jugas had used in its compilation. A few days of study would enable him to master enough of it to send and receive messages and a few more days would suffice for the building of suitable apparatus by a technician. During the following days he worked with a minimum of interruption. Once the neighborhood was flooded with an unpleasant gas but suitable absorbents for it had been developed only a short time before and Sarkin did not even have to leave the house. And once, when Norick had guests who chatted in another room while Sarkin soberly continued his studies, the place was thrown into an uproar by an invasion of the tiny creatures whose appearance had so revolted Leta. With a single exception, all the guests, both men and women, were aroused to the point of frenzy. Sarkin heard the shrieking and yelling and stepped in annoyance from his study. He saw supposedly intelligent human beings running around madly to escape from creatures that couldn't harm them, throwing furniture and racing frantically for safety whenever one of the equally frightened beasts headed in their direction. He watched in silence and when the last little invader had made its escape stepped thoughtfully back into the study. A few days later the apparatus was ready. He had learned from the experience of Jugas and conducted his broadcasts from a relay station, so that if the Giants traced the waves back and attempted to kill him, as they had eventually killed Jugas, he would not be so easily victimized. Then he began to send out his messages. On the second day he received a reply. The Giant mentality was evidently geared to lower speed than his own and the questions and answers dragged out over the course of several days. There was a considerable amount of repetition, as both individuals went back again and again over points which had not been made clear. But in essentials, the conversation was as follows: Sarkin: My name is Sarkin. I am speaking unofficially but in case we can arrive at any sort of agreement I am prepared to transmit our conclusions to my government, which 1 am sure will give them careful consideration. (That ought to impress him, thought Sarkin. I must sound like a born diplomat.) Giant: We are not interested in reaching agreement on any subject. Sarkin: Why are you conducting a war of extermination against us? Giant: That is our business. Sarkin: We have done you no harm whatever. Isn't it absurd to spend so much energy trying to kill us? Giant: (No answer.) Sarkin: Do you mean that we have done you harm? (Again no answer. There must be a question of military secrecy involved here, thought Sarkin, and a glow of pleasure swept through him. We must be more dangerous to them than we have realized.) Sarkin: If we have done you any harm it has been unintentional. Are you allergic to us? Giant: No. Sarkin: If it's anything else we can come to an agreement to eliminate features of our activities that you don't like. Giant: Only one sort of agreement is possible. You must surrender unconditionally and leave the planet. Sarkin: That is out of the question. Giant: Then so is agreement. Sarkin: Tell us what harm we have done you. We may be able to put a stop to it. Giant: (No answer.) Sarkin: Your proposition is absurd. Do you kill merely for the lust of killing? Or is it because you think we cannot hit back? We prefer peace but we are not defenseless, despite your superiority in size. We are preparing gases and explosives of our own. We shall soon carry the war to you. Peace would benefit you as much as it would us. (I may be exaggerating slightly, thought Sarkin, but not much. In another ten years we'll certainly be able to hit back effectively with a few gases and explosives of our own.) Giant: (No answer.) Sarkin: Do all your race think as you do? Giant: (No answer.) Sarkin: You leave us no choice. If you really intend to exterminate us— At this point the conversation came to an abrupt end. The Giants had located his relay sender and now broke in on it. Sarkin had the satisfaction of hearing, on his observer set, the explosion that drew a cry of pain from the leading Giant and wrecked the relay as well. He had learned from the unfortunate experience of Jugas. They had tried to trap him, and had been trapped themselves, thus receiving very convincing evidence that he was not boasting overmuch when he talked of his own race's ability to hit back. LATER he talked over the situation with Leta. She had been on a round of museums, plays and poetry readings but the pleasure of these diversions palled rapidly when she learned that the Giants had their eyes out especially for places of amusement, knowing that in them they could bag large numbers of victims in a comparatively defenseless condition. "Something will have to be done," said Leta firmly. "How do you expect actors to do their best when their performance is always liable to be interrupted by some one's stepping on them?" "That's not the point," observed Sarkin. "The question is, why do they hate us? Why do they try to kill us off?" "Does there have to be a reason?" "Of course there does. The Giants are intelligent." "Does there have to be an intelligent reason? It may be just a whim." Sarkin bit his lip. "You're right, it doesn't have to be intelligent. But don't judge the Giants by some of the people you've been seeing. They're not creatures of whim." "I don't know what you mean by that," complained Leta. "Good Heavens, Sarkin, I haven't understood half the poetry I've been hearing the past few days. Don't you start talking like a poet." "All right. What I mean is that the Giants are motivated not by whim, which is something trivial, but by a deep-seated emotional reason. Leta, why do you hate those little creatures that have been making you scream every now and then?" "I don't know whether I can explain or not. They're so repulsive—" "That's the point. Why?" She said helplessly, "How can any one answer a question like that? Why do I love you? Why did I hate Gorson Manders—" "Never mind that," said Sarkin in haste. "I don't want to discuss the men you knew before we were married. I'll merely grant you that it's a fascinating topic and get back to the original subject. We have to find those reasons." "Well, I can tell you that nothing on Earth—and I'm not using the name of our ancestral Mother Planet in vain, Sarkin—nothing would have made me like Gorson. Just as nothing would make me like those furry little creatures." "You dislike them because they're furry?" "Not only that. It's the way they creep. At the thought of one of them touching me—ugh!" "Your skin crawls?" "Exactly. They're—they're vermin." Sarkin's eyes glittered at the word. "And we are vermin to the Giants. That must be it." "But that's absurd. We're not repulsive!" "Not to each other, just as the furry creatures aren't repulsive to each other. But our smooth skin may be repulsive to the Giants—their own furriness and the ideas they've formed that smooth skin is ugly may have conditioned them to that. "Then again they're three-legged and our two-legged gait may seem to them an unpleasant, hopping mode of locomotion. To them our voices may be unpleasant squeaks. And when you add to all that the fact that we are as intelligent as they are and potentially harmful because of our intelligence—perhaps they have reason enough to hate us." "But if that's so—what can we do about their silly ideas?" "Nothing. I'm afraid. It's possible to treat our own individuals to rid them of the fear of small creatures. But we're in no position to make the Giants lose their fear of us." "If they really have any fear." "I think I'm right. But I'll investigate further, Leta." Further investigation, as Sarkin had expected, confirmed his theory. He found references in old books to the fears that had afflicted human beings while still on Earth. Many had been repelled by mice, spiders, insects, crustaceans, snails, worms—the list was long and inclusive. Elephants had been repelled by mice. Even on the other planets native animals and plants had aroused repulsions. One inoffensive plant had been rendered extinct merely because it resembled a slug and thus offended the sensibilities of the first colonists on Venus. Moreover there was no way of removing these repulsions without extensive psychological treatment and there was no opportunity to convince the Giants that such treatment would be useful. The war was inevitably on to the death. IT was only a few days after Sarkin had reached this conclusion that the Giants confirmed it. They opened a campaign of extermination beside which all previous ones were pale and harmless. They used poisonous and repellent chemicals, they baited traps, they systematically searched out and destroyed the larger dwelling places, even at the cost of ruining some of their own buildings. They hunted down the hapless victims with their tame animals. In certain localities the death rates mounted alarmingly. At the Special Assembly called to deal with the new menace Sarkin had the opportunity to express the conclusions at which he had arrived. Strangely enough it was his friend Norick who challenged the value of these conclusions. "Granted that they hate us," said Norick, "it would be absurd to suppose that so intelligent a race is afflicted with so irrational a fear. Moreover Sarkin's theory doesn't take us a step further in devising methods to combat the danger." "I should like to differ," observed Sarkin mildly. "If I am correct—and I think I am—my theory offers a very simple method of routing the Giants. We can turn their own irrational fears against them. Of course a short training period may be necessary and experience will doubtless teach us many improvements. But there is a method of attack against the Giants which I am willing to apply in person." "You are willing," asked Norick incredulously, "to seek out the Giants and attack them?" "Exactly." A delegate arose and shouted, "Mr. Chairman, the honorable delegate is obviously insane. I suggest that he be removed by the Sergeant-at-Arms and that a discussion of logically possible methods be continued." To Sarkin's regret that set off the kind of uproar which might have been expected. It was not until evening that he was able to explain his plan. And it was not until a week later, after rigorous training, that he and one of the younger and more reckless delegates formed an experimental team to attack the Giants. Armed with no more than the usual weapons, which were capable at most of inflicting a painful sting on their gigantic enemies, they invaded no less a gathering than a Giant Repertory Theatre. The Giants had concentrated on attacking their own places of amusement, thought Sarkin, and turnabout was only fair play. There were five of the great creatures in a room, two of them seated at a table, and during the thunderous roll of presumably sparkling wit Sarkin and his companion managed to reach the floor beneath the table itself. Sarkin's heart was in his mouth for fear that one of the actors or a member of the audience might notice him but attention was centered too intently on the play. At a critical moment, when his companion gave him the signal, he took the plunge. He had climbed up the table leg, using a specially prepared scaling ladder and now he showed himself on the flat surface of the table. Shouting at the top of his voice to draw every one's attention, he yelled, "Here I am! Come and get me!" The words he used meant nothing to them but his shrill squeak brought the thunderous dialogue to an abrupt stop. One furry Giant hand rose and remained suspended in the air because the individual to whom it belonged hesitated to dirty himself with the squashed corpse of the furless creature. Sarkin had counted on that. He had counted too on second thought, and the attempt to squash him with a book. As the great volume started its descent he leaped aside, fired into the back of the hand that held it, then sprang after the missile. He raced over the Giant's furry skin, feeling the monster tremble, his ears deafened by the roar of repulsion. The man's fellow were shrinking away from him and at that moment, Sarkin's companion ran up the leg of another. The place became an immense madhouse as members of the audience stampeded in panic for the exits. Guards ran out upon the stage and one of them shot wildly, wounding an actor. When Sarkin and his companion finally leaped to the ground once more and made their escape their exit went unnoticed. One of the Giants had discarded his clothes in full view of the unheeding audience and was roaring wildly as his fellows sprayed him with what looked to Sarkin like a great green waterfall, which he knew contained a human-repellent chemical. The next day the whole theatre was abandoned. "They think it's infested with humans," reported Sarkin to his own Military Council with grim satisfaction. From then on the campaign swung into high speed. Volunteers were trained by the thousands and sent out in teams to demoralize the Giants. Not all of them had Sarkin's luck. In fact, during the third week of the campaign, overconfidence led to extremely high casualties but the Giants were in a state of panic and the Military Council gave them no chance to recover. BY the end of a month they had been driven out of the city proper. They sent huge planes over the ground with radioactives but the Council had been prepared for that and had already ordered the evacuation of the city. A few days after the bombing an advance guard managed to board a supply truck and reach a Giant camp unobserved. Using the tactics Sarkin had devised they drove the Giants out of the air base, then from the rest of the camp. In no more than four months the campaign was over. The Giants, evacuating by means of great passenger vessels, abandoned the planet. It took them another month to do so and whenever they showed any signs of lagging the Council would stimulate them a bit—but it was clear that they knew themselves defeated. They made no attempt to put up a last-ditch flight. Some time later, when they no longer went in fear of the sudden roar of thunder from Giant throats or the great shadows from Giant footsteps, Leta faced her husband across the breakfast table and said, "My hero!" There was an amused smile on her face as she said it but deep down she was immensely proud of him and Sarkin felt her pride. He knew that she wouldn't even have minded if he wore his medals and one of these days he thought he'd surprise her by spreading them over his chest when he took her to a concert. But at the moment he contented himself with saying, "You inspired me, dear. You gave me the clue when you used the word, 'vermin.' " "And the vermin drove their enemies from the planet." "Not at all. The vermin were the ones who were driven." Leta's pretty eyebrows lifted. "Surely the Giants were too large to fall into that category." "It isn't a matter of size," said Sarkin. "Back in primitive days, on Earth the Mother Planet, our proto-ancestors used a term 'varmint,' a variation of the more general 'vermin.' They applied it to quite large animals." "Who am I?" asked Leta, "to argue with a man who's studied history?" "A very pretty woman," he retorted as she expected. "And you've studied more important things than history. However—a varmint was a creature that destroyed. That's why I consider the Giants vermin. "We were willing to live and let live. They weren't. And in their irrational hatred they wanted to exterminate every living thing in the city outside of themselves. Remember their radioactive clouds?" Leta nodded. "People who go in for wholesale extermination have no rights. And that's something for us to remember too. We are justified in killing for the sake of preserving the human race. We have no justification for killing because of blind hatred." "Of course not," said Leta. "I'm glad you agree with me. Look at this." LETA stared in horrified surprise at the thing in his hand and screamed. "Keep it away from me. Step on it!" "I'll do nothing of the kind. I'll step away from you so that you may be sure it won't bite or make faces at you. I want you to look at it. Is it really so repulsive?" Leta looked. She saw a six-legged creature about three inches long. It had a short tail and a round face with small blue markings around the eyes that made it seem to be wearing spectacles with blue lenses. She said, "Ugh!" "Ugh yourself. It's a very cute animal. It's exceedingly tame and dying to be friends. Watch." He held his hand flat and the creature ran up one sleeve, around his neck and down his other sleeve. When it reached his other hand it chirped interrogatively. Leta laughed hesitantly. "Now, honestly, what are you afraid of?" "I don't know. It's—" "Nothing of the kind. I've trapped several in my laboratory, made friends with them and studied them. I can't imagine a better and more useful creature to have around the house. It kills small food-spoiling predators, it warns of poison gases, it does a great mangy other useful things. "I don't expect you to conquer your fear of it overnight. But get used to the idea that it's a friend. Because it's going to be fashionable. A month from now no home will be complete without one for a pet." "Honest?" said Leta "It'll really fashionable?" Sarkin nodded. A half hour later Leta was letting the friendly little creature eat out of her hand while Sarkin wondered whether those great enemies of theirs, the Giants, had found a home half as good as the one from which their own stupidity had driven them. "When they might have had us eating out of their hands!" he thought with an amusement he didn't consider it advisable to share with Leta. The Cupids of Venus By WILLIAM MORRISON AS the men filed into the lecture room out of the fog, Makin looked around, but there was no sign that any of the women had been here. In fact, there was nothing to indicate that the women were on the same planet. His heart dropped but he hid his disappointment. As Colonel Galchek strode into the room, he assumed the same cool look of indifference the others showed. The Colonel stared at them, and the men quieted down. The Colonel had an idea, thought Makin ironically, that he knew how to impose discipline with a glance, but it was more probable that on this last lap of their training before the great adventure the men were anxious to learn what lay ahead of them. At any rate, they listened attentively. Colonel Galchek was brief. "Gentlemen," he said, "your stay on Venus will be a short one—less than ten days. You will be forced to undergo in this brief period, hazards of the same kind you would normally face on Cygnus Beta Two in the course of years. I need hardly say that this sort of training will be invaluable. It is possible—even probable—that of the sixty men here, one or two will not survive the rigors of the course." He looked at them coolly, as if wondering which one or two would not survive. "We shall regret all casualties, of course." "The dirty liar," thought Makin. "He wouldn't regret a casualty if it was his own grandmother." "Nevertheless, some casualties are unavoidable. And it is far better to suffer them here, where you can reveal your weaknesses while there is still time to correct them, than on a planet in Cygnus. We don't want any unpleasant surprises there. Of the fifty couples finally selected to make the trip, we intend to have every one survive. We want the Cygnus colony to get off to a good start. We must prove that it's livable, and that it can take the overflow of the System's population." HE paused as the men stirred restlessly. "You're picked men and you've already been through severe training. Your wives have been selected just as carefully as you have. They will be fit mates for you in every respect." "Are the women," asked Makin, "undergoing the same sort of training in the final stage?" "Naturally. On Cygnus they'll face the same conditions as you do. They'll need the same preparation." "Are they on Venus too?" The Colonel frowned. "They are, but that doesn't concern you. You will have no contact with them until the time for departure. I should like to suggest, gentlemen," he added acidly, "that you confine your questions to matters that concern this group as a whole. Individual problems will be taken up during your interviews this afternoon and tomorrow." The men shrugged. One man opened his mouth to ask a question and then closed it, the question unasked. "You'll receive your detailed schedules tomorrow afternoon, after you have all been interviewed. That is all." The men broke up and went to their rooms. Makin was not tired, but he could have slept if he had wanted to, for he had conditioned himself to fall into a sound slumber upon the mental repetition of a simple nursery rhyme. And from all indications, it would be well to rest up as much as possible for the ordeal ahead of him. All the same, he preferred to stay awake and think. He had met the girl he knew as Women's Group Member 47, or W 47, for short, accidentally a mere two weeks before, on completion of his space flight. She had been sent in to see her own superior officer at the time he had gone up for a psychological recheck. The elevator signal had been set for the wrong floor, and he had met her in the waiting room. He had known even at the time that it was hopeless, for the matings were being arranged on a scientific basis, but he had fallen in love with her completely, even, in a manner of speaking, before first sight. He had fallen in love with the shape of the back of her head, of her neck and shoulders, before she had turned her head so that he could see her face. The sight of her clear eyes, and the strong yet delicate chin had merely strengthened his feelings. He had been able to say only a dozen words to her before an attendant had discovered that he was in the wrong place, and firmly escorted him out. But in that time he had heard her voice, and the sound was part of his own existence. He was in love, and he would have one chance in sixty of getting her. The chance had been long, but not impossible; unfortunately, it had not come through. He had been informed only the day_ before that he had been paired with W-24, and that no change in arrangements was possible. The men in charge were not idiots, but they could be guilty on occasion of idiotic behavior. He would have died for W 47, and he was being assigned to W 24; some man who wouldn't have crossed the street to save her life was going to get the girl he loved and to live with her for the rest of her life. It was stupid, it would inevitably cause trouble in the new colony, but the men in charge were not concerned with his feelings. They had their rules, and they were going to see to it that they were carried out. Makin cursed softly to himself. He had volunteered for colonization duty of his own accord, out of a spirit of adventure, and he had up till, then accepted discipline with the belief that it was for his own good. Now he refused to accept it further. He hoped they wouldn't force him to do it, but if necessary he would drop out of the colony. They wouldn't like it, but it wouldn't really hurt their plans, for of the sixty men they had certainly calculated on losing one or two. Whatever happened, however, he was going to get that girl. Having made up his mind about that, he said to himself, "The little birds upon the moon/ Are sad as sad can be/ There is no air,/ And that's unfair/ To bird or bug or bee." With the last word, he was asleep. His interview with the Colonel took place the following morning, and it settled things for him. The Colonel said, "You were interested in the women's group, Mr. Makin. Is one of them on your mind?" "Very much so. I want to marry her." "You are not satisfied with the mate assigned to you ?" "I haven't met her, and I don't know anything about her. I don't want to know." "Her number, I understand, is W 24. I have her photograph here. You might care to look at it." Makin looked, and said, "She's a pretty girl. Under other circumstances, I might have liked her." "She has excellent qualities. Qualities any man would like to see in his wife." "Sorry, Colonel, I'm not interested. I want to marry W 47." "This one?" Again the Colonel showed a photograph, and suddenly Makin was conscious that his heart beat faster. "That's the one, sir." "She's been assigned to someone else." "I think she's in love with me too." "Love? The word's absurd. You'll both of you change your minds before long." "I don't think we will." THE Colonel said testily, "Your psychological pattern shows that you are best suited to W 24. We know what's best for you, Makin." "Psychology is not yet an exact science, Colonel. I prefer the girl of my own choice." "You will take the one we choose for you. And incidentally, Makin, there is no backing out. You understand that, I think. Unless you fail to pass the tests, in which case your future is not very bright, you will be a member of the colonizing expedition. And you will be married to W 24 before leaving." "Do you think that is wise, sir? I tell you frankly that I am in love with W 47. And if she is to be married to another man in the same colony of fifty couples—" "We have thought of that, Makin.'.' The Colonel smiled pleasantly. "I may have neglected to tell you that there will be not one colony in Cygnus, but two. Another group of fifty couples will be going, to Cygnus Sigma Three. At the end of this present training period, you and your mate will be shipped to one colony, W 47 and her mate to the other. There will be no transport between them. You and W 47 will never see each other again." "I understand, sir," said Makin quietly. He saluted and went out, leaving the Colonel still smiling behind him. Down the corridor he received his training schedule and had time to study it. They were starting the men off on individual jungle trips. Each man would be supplied with a map and instruments, with enough food for a week, and with weapons that would enable him, if he were sufficiently strong and active, to cope with the fauna and flora he might be expected to encounter. He pored over the map, and drew certain conclusions that were not in line with the task that had been assigned him. He was expected to travel from point A to point B in seven days. The distance was short, no more than a hundred miles as the Venusian equivalent of a crow flew, but detours might be necessary and the map covered far more than a narrow strip of territory between the two points. If the women were undergoing the same kind of training, it was possible that they were being sent through the same jungle in an area alongside. Their starting point might be expected to be not too far away. And if he moved rapidly, not from A to B, but to the side, he might get on her trail. The only question to be decided was in which direction to move, right or left. He studied the map again, and noted that the jungle at the right was a little less dense. In consideration of the lesser physical strength of the women, it was possible, although far from certain, that they had been given the easier route. Makin made up his mind. He would move to the right and try to locate her as rapidly as possible. If he made a mistake, he would be losing much valuable time, and be forced to retrace his steps, but there was no other course open to him. He set off at once to the right. The sun glared down, its disc vague and enormous through a thick lens of semitransparent clouds, its rays hot and active. Some of the bluish vegetation in his path could actually be seen to grow as he looked at it, but the stalks bent away from him as he approached, repelled by the ST in which his clothes and equipment had been soaked. Overhead, great bird-like insects soared. One or two of them caught sight of him, swooped down and then zoomed upward in sudden fright as a sound ray from his ultra-frequency projector hit them. Within the first half-hour he came across a colony of the much-feared traveling fungi, which his guide book assured him were relatively rare. The entire colony began to crawl toward him when he was still a hundred feet away, and he had to destroy its cohesion with an aerosol pellet. A faintly sweetish odor filled the air, and the colony broke up into countless numbers of individual fungi, each growing and dividing, growing and dividing aimlessly, to end up an hour after he had gone as enfeebled and dying individuals, no longer capable of joining together as a super-organism which had been the terror of the animals in his path. He didn't turn back to look. Five hours after the start, he stopped to eat and rest. The eating took ten minutes, the resting five. By the beam compass and path tracer on his left wrist, which gave him his position at a glance, he saw that he had covered almost twelve miles. The going was not rapid, but he was untired, and he knew that he could keep it up for a long time. He moved on. The clouds began to thicken and the jungle became dank and gloomy, a vast dismal cavern beneath the heavy arch of vapor. Twice he saw other men of his group, and they passed each other quickly, with the shortest of greetings, each intent upon his own problem. Now, if his guess was correct, he must be coming close to the area where the women would be forcing their way through the jungle. The vegetation was already more sparse and occasionally he could catch a glimpse of a large form slinking silently in the distance past the moving trunks of trees which snapped desperately at it in an attempt to secure much-needed protein. He turned on the walkie-talkie on his right wrist, and broadcast a signal. If he were lucky, she would be close enough to hear him and reply. But no one answered. He continued to signal from time to time for short intervals, but it was another six hours before he received a signal in return. W 34 wanted to know whether he was hurt and calling for help. He told her that he wasn't, and asked if she could give him any information about W 47. She couldn't, and he switched off once more, changing direction so that he would cut across W 34's path without meeting her. The incident was a definite bit of encouragement. It showed that he had chosen the correct direction for the women's test area, and that in cutting across to the right he had not dropped far enough behind to be out of contact distance. He had stored up enough sleep to keep going for a good twenty-four hours without getting too tired, but he did not omit necessary precautions. He stopped to eat again after the normal five-hour period, and this time he rested for twenty minutes. WHEN he started again, night had fallen. But he strode ahead as confidently as before, a beam from his cap casting a daylight glow around him. And at the end of the third hour, he received in response to his own signal the word he had awaited. W 47 said softly, "I've been expecting to hear from you." "You cut across to the left to meet me ?" "As fast as I could." "What's your position now?" She told him, and he looked at the map and clenched his teeth. Between them ran a river, a mile in width. Near the center it was several hundred feet in depth. There were deadly water-creatures hidden beneath its surface, and there was no ford where a crossing could be attempted. Nor would it be feasible to build a raft. The large vegetation was heavier than water, and could not be cut down and hollowed out so that it would float except at the cost of more time than they could spare. Nevertheless, they were within talking distance of one another, and that was the main thing. An hour later, they were at the river, he on his bank and she on hers. But his beam would not cut through a mile of darkness, and he knew that he would have to wait for daylight before catching sight of her. Colonel Galchek would have enjoyed their conversation. Makin asked gently, "Are you tired, darling?" "Not very." "You should go to sleep. But I'd like to give myself five minutes of talking to you." "Is that all?" "That will keep me going until morning. What's your real name?" "Lona. Darling, are your eyes really green, or was it just the light in which I saw you?" "They're supposed to be greenish-blue." "I love them. Darling, let me hear you say my name." The conversation, as Colonel Galchek might have observed derisively, degenerated into an interchange of fairly senseless, but satisfying sounds. But Makin limited himself strictly to five minutes. At the end of that time they wished each other good night and each retired to a clear spot in the middle of a clump of trees. The fronds recoiled desperately from their ST'd clothing and thrashed around in impotent anger. Any of the larger animals lured by hopes of a human meal would receive a ferocious welcome from these vegetable guardians. Makin varied his rhyme slightly, using the version that would insure awakening at the end of six hours. He whispered softly, "The little creatures on the moon/ Are sad as sad can be/ There is no air/ And that's unfair/ To things that fly or flee." His sleep was as sound as ever. But it did not last for a full six hours. Shortly before the awakening time he had set for himself, a shrill howling from the trees around him brought him to his feet. A long, thin constrictor plant had wrapped itself around the fronds of one of his tree-guards, and the tree was whipping back and forth in a vain effort to escape. The other end of the constrictor slipped through the space between the trees and came at him. His knife was out at once, and he slashed at it vigorously. But the supple bark had the toughness of steel and even the tempered blade left no more than a shallow scratch. The constrictor curled around his right arm, and from that, as he dropped the knife, slid to his body. But his other hand had already secured his heater, and the blinding flame sliced through the thin strangler with startling ease. The two halves of the constrictor dropped from their victims and slithered away in panic. Soon the charred ends would slough away and then, if the plant-creature were lucky and didn't die at once, they would embed themselves in the soil and slowly grow again. Meanwhile, Makin rubbed his right arm, which felt paralyzed, and left the clump of trees. He turned on his walkie-talkie, and at once received her signal. "Darling," she said, "I got up early to think about you, but I didn't want to disturb your sleep. Are you all right?" "Perfect," he told her. "But don't do it again. You need the rest more than I need the time spent worrying about me." "The mists are clearing. Shall we try to see each other?" He stood at the edge of the river and looked across. On the other edge he could make out a small black spot which seemed to move oddly. "Are you waving your arms ?" he asked. "That's right. You have wonderful eyes!" "Just what I was going to say. But your face doesn't look as beautiful as it did the last time I saw you. Not at this distance." "Why not use your field magnifier?" "I'm getting it out." He focussed the lenses and grinned. "Are you angry at me, or is that expression natural?" "It's perfectly natural. I'm sticking my tongue out at you." "Because I can't think of a way to cross this river?" "Not at all. Just because I love you." "That's hardly logical," he said. "But it makes sense to me. What do we do next?" "Continue upstream on our way to the designated points." "Not quite. Besides, that's no solution to crossing the river. It doesn't narrow appreciably for fifty miles." "What are a mere fifty miles?" "Darling," he said, "don't talk like that, or I'll plunge in and try to swim across. And I'm saving that little trick for a last resort. Shall we start upstream, keeping each other in sight, and see what we can find in the way of ferries?" "We may as well," she sighed. IN the river, a creature that seemed to I be all mouth and teeth broke the surface and turned toward him. It had no eyes, but it scented his presence as surely as any hound could have done. As he moved upstream, it kept pace with him like a faithful dog. After a mile, another of its kind joined it, and then another, and another. A few words from Lona confirmed the fact that she was being accompanied by a similar pack of hungry and hopeful river-beasts. His chances of crossing the river and joining her began to seem more remote than ever. After eighteen hours of travel they slept as before in the center of groups of trees, and this time no incident disturbed the sleep of either one. But next morning the hungry packs were still there, faithfully awaiting what must have seemed to them like promised meals. That day and the following passed eventlessly and hopelessly. For a few moments Makin had entertained the idea of cutting down one of the larger trees and hollowing it out to make a canoe, but even if he had taken the time, he realized that the craft would have been unstable, and that the waiting beasts would easily have tipped it over to get at him. On the fourth day of their journey along the river, the jungle began to thin out. Here and there were spaces bare of the frond-trees and in these clearings more and more of the larger animals began to be visible. Two or three attached themselves to his trail, and he could see them from time to time, fearful of the weapons that they knew human beings carried, but hopeful at the same time of a human meal. For the moment they were no more than shadowy dangers, but sooner or later they would attack. A short conversation with Lona revealed that she too was accompanied by similar companions on land, as well as by the river-pack. "Take care of yourself," said Makin casually, although his heart beat faster when he heard of her danger. "Don't worry, sweetheart." "The river narrows a bit just a little further on. Tomorrow I'm going to attempt a crossing." "You'll try to swim?" "Yes. I've thought of a way. It isn't foolproof, but I think I have a very good chance." "You mustn't! What will become of me if I lose you?" "I don't think you will. But don't worry, darling, we'll talk it over thoroughly before I start out." The jungle thinned out until it was no longer jungle, and that night he had difficulty in finding a clump of trees to protect him. He was glad to hear that on her side she had less trouble. When, eventually, he fell asleep, the beasts crouched outside the range of the trees, panting expectantly at the thought of what would happen on the morrow. In the morning he spoke to Lona again, and made ready. This time, when he left the protection of the trees, the hungry animals could hardly wait. They darted around him, each afraid to be the first to attack, each fearfully watching its fellows to make sure that it was not done out of a meal. He made straight for the river bank. At sight of him apparently ready to enter the water and escape them, the hitherto soundless animals howled in desperation, while in the water, the mouth-like beasts quivered with eagerness. The land-beasts attacked. But Makin had his weapon out and although they darted in swiftly, his gun was ready. He cut down four before they came close, and a fifth whose teeth were slashing at him. The animal died in mid-air, its jaws snapping and tearing at the skin of his arm before it hit the ground. Two remained alive, and these fled. He turned his back to them and directed his gun upon the waiting river-beasts. When he had finished his slaughter, dead creatures floated on the water for a distance of a hundred feet down the river. He tossed into the water the first animals he had killed, and ran upstream. At a spot where the scent of the dead had not yet reached, he plunged in. For a few moments at least, he would be safe, with the attention of the river's predatory creatures centered on the feast he had so kindly provided for them. He swam rapidly and steadily, at a pace the he knew he could keep up. From the other side of the river, Lona was keeping an eye on him, ready to warn him of danger that approached on the surface. After a quarter of a mile, her signal came. The animals he had killed had been eaten, and the different predators, especially those who had managed to get no more than a taste of the feast, would be seeking new victims. He crushed one of his two capsules of river-repellent as it rested in a pocket of his jacket. He was barely in time. From the side, one of the mouth-like beasts darted at him, then stopped short, trembling with a sort of animal disgust as it caught the scent-taste of the repellent, diffusing slowly from his jacket into the water. To Makin himself, the chemical had a faint, not unpleasant fragrance, but to the river creatures it was intolerable. This one darted away again as rapidly as it had approached. But it didn't go far. It returned once more, slowly this time, and followed him as he swam steadily toward the bank where Lona waited. He tried to twist around for a shot at it, but in the water the animal was too quick for him, and all he did was waste precious seconds, in which he could have advanced almost a dozen yards. He didn't make the same mistake again. HE swam steadily until the increasing boldness of the waiting beast warned him that the supply of chemical in the capsule was near exhaustion. None the less, he kept his nerve. Before crushing his second and final capsule, he waited until the creature was actually darting in for the attack. It swerved away again, but it had won a partial victory. Makin had hoped he would not have to use this second dose of repellent before covering two-thirds of the distance across the river. But he had been forced to crush the capsule at least fifty yards before this goal. Now he knew that he would have to fight his way the last hundred yards out of the river. And he could gauge his hopes of success by the quickness of the waiting beast, which circled around him easily, and could flash in for the kill while he tried to twist around and raise his weapon. His hopes were not improved at the three-quarter mark, where a second beast joined the first, and he knew that when the moment for fighting came he would have to keep an eye on both at the same time. He had passed the deepest part of the river, and a hundred yards from shore he was able to touch bottom. But he continued to swim, for he could advance more rapidly that way than he could by wading. Only when both beasts, as if at a signal, closed in at the same time, did he stand and make the desperate fight that he had known was inevitable. His first shot missed, and one beast's mouth loomed before him, the teeth sharp and frightening. He swung an arm in front of his face to keep the jaws from snapping at his throat, and the teeth ripped his sleeve to shreds. He had no time for the creature that would attack from the other side, and in the back of his mind he felt that he was doomed. But it was not in his nature to give up. As the one in front of him twisted around and snapped again, he thrust his arm into its mouth and fired. The blast tore it apart as the teeth sank into his flesh. He turned around. At his side, the other beast floated, dead, and Lona was trying not to sob. "Darling, I came as quickly as I could, but I was too slow. You're wounded!" "Not badly. Not too badly to do this." He put both the injured and the unharmed arm around her and drew her close. For a second she allowed him to embrace her, then pushed him away. "Let's get to the bank first." He said unhappily, "I suppose that's sensible. What slowed you up?" "The moment I saw you were having trouble, I came to meet you, as I had said I would before you entered the water. But my first capsule was faulty. The chemical in it seemed to have deteriorated, and the beasts came at me when I was no further in than my knees. Luckily, I could use my arm freely enough to fight them off. Then I used the other capsule, and came on. But I had lost time. A second later, and I wouldn't have been able to get the one coming at you from the other side." SHE shuddered, but Makin said calmly, "You weren't too late. I knew all along that you wouldn't be." They had reached shore, and this time the embrace was a long one. Finally she pulled her lips away from his and gasped, "We're not out of the woods yet. Let me bandage your arm." "The better to embrace you with." "Let me do the talking. Darling, we still have a wonderful chance to get to Cygnus." "Together?" She nodded. "The man who interviewed me was called out of the room. He was out for five minutes, long enough for me to read one or two of the papers on top of his desk, and learn the procedure to be followed on the Cygnus colonizing expedition. We can get on that space ship and once we're on, they'll have to take us." Makin smiled. "You were unscrupulous enough to meddle with papers that you had no right to touch, despite the code you've been taught, and the penalties with which you've been threatened?" "Darling, I knew they meant to keep us apart. I wasn't going to let that happen, no matter what the risk." "Lona, you're wonderful—" "No, don't kiss me again. Just listen. The space port is twenty miles from here. They don't expect trouble, so it isn't too well guarded. We can get married in the civilian center nearby, using the papers given us for the official mating. Then, if we can get on the ship shortly before it's scheduled to take off, they won't have time to find out that anything's wrong, and once it does take off, it certainly won't turn back for our sake. The only difficulty will be getting on the ship." "We'll bribe a guard." "The guards may not be easy to bribe." "Then we'll threaten them. Or we'll do both. Let's go, darling." At the civilian center, each had a marriage test certificate ready, and the ceremony took place without trouble. But at the space port itself, there seemed at first little chance that they would be able to get to the ship. The first guard to whom Makin spoke in private, refused bluntly and was about to raise an alarm, when Makin hit him and knocked him unconscious. Plastic ropes and a gag ensured his silence until take-off time. With the second guard, a shifty-eyed individual who kept his gaze on the ground, they had more luck. He demanded all their money and their most valuable equipment before consenting to aid them, but finally he was satisfied. The actual getting on the ship turned out to be simple enough. The guard consulted a register of those already checked through, accepted their identification tags, pretended to compare the numbers with those on his lists, and waved them forward. He would get into trouble later, thought Makin, but the bribe he had received would more than make up for it. A half-hour after they had been given their compartment, the ship took off. But not until it had circled the planet and was setting a steady course for Cygnus' did they breathe freely. Then Makin took her in his arms once more. They were hurtling past Earth by the time he let her go. IN the Colonization office, Major Crane saluted, and Colonel Galchek said dryly: "What's the final record?" "Fifty-one couples for Beta Two, fifty-two for Sigma Three. All on board in first-class condition or close to it. Nothing but such trifles as wounded arms and legs, wrenched backs, and so on." "We've topped our quota," said Galchek with satisfaction. "Next time we'll do even better. What were the causes of failure?" "Of the seventeen listed, there was one joint failure, in which neither man nor woman made the grade. Both physical and mental factors were involved." Galchek grunted. "Separate them, cure them of what ails them, and give them nice non-adventurous jobs. Go on." "Three cases of physical failure—two among the men, one among the women. Purely accidental factors involved. They refused to be separated. In each case, the uninjured member of the couple saved his or her partner. I suggest that they be kept together and sent on a later expedition." "We'll do that. What of the remaining thirteen?" "Primarily mental. There was slight differences among them, but in each case the pre-encounter suggestions did not work out properly." "Whose fault?" asked Galchek. "The psychologists ?" "They're not perfect, Colonel, but I think we can blame primarily the human material. Consider the cases that did work, such as those of M 14 and W 47." "I remember M 14. I think his name was Makin." "Right. He and W 47 received thoroughly established pre-suggestions that they fall in love with each other, despite the nature of pretended official matings. Well, all he needed was a sight of the back of her neck, her hair and half of one ear, and the thing clicked. From then on, wild horses couldn't have separated them. In fact, wild beasts didn't." "And in the other cases—the failures?" "Some had even more protracted first meetings. Undoubtedly, they felt attracted to each other. But five were so thoroughly conditioned to taking orders that they refused to challenge the official matings. They would have allowed themselves to be mated to those they didn't like, rather than risk displeasure for those they loved." Galchek said with contempt, "They'll make nice officials themselves some day. Old bureaucratic style. They'll be separated?" "Of course. Of those left, two of the women were so honorable that they refused to examine the papers on my desk when given the opportunity. Three of the men, after going through all the physical dangers, thought it was wrong to bribe a guard. Even that shifty-eyed guard we had placed there for the specific purpose of being bribed." "The idiots. They'd never make the grade on Cygnus. And the remainder?" "Danger separated them instead of bringing them together. They quarreled fiercely." "For them, Cygnus would be death," Galchek said. "Talking about psychologists not being perfect—they're hardly passable. Every individual had a thorough psych-check. None of these things should have happened." "We know they shouldn't. But they always do. That's why we can't afford to rely on tests alone, and have to put our couples through the mill." "I still say it's wasteful," growled Galchek. "Of course, the fact that each couple has fought through dangers together and expects to receive punishment for breaking orders if it ever returned to the System, also helps keep them together on a tough job in Cygnus. But the whole thing is a nuisance. Imagine the Colonization Service having to serve as Cupid and arrange all those love matches!" And the thought of Makin and Lona, and all the other couples now gazing so blissfully into each other's eyes, made him growl again. For it happened that Colonel Galchek, chief Cupid of Venus, had married for money instead of love. The Addicts By WILLIAM MORRISON Illustrated by ED ALEXANDER Wives always try to cure husbands of bad habits, even on lonely asteroids! YOU must understand that Palmer loved his wife as much as ever, or he would never have thought of his simple little scheme at all. It was entirely for her own good; as he had told himself a dozen times in the past day. And with that he stilled whatever qualms of conscience he might otherwise have had. He didn't think of himself as being something of a murderer. She was sitting at the artificial fireplace, a cheerful relic of ancient days, reading just as peacefully as if she had been back home on Mars, instead of on this desolate outpost of space. She had adjusted quickly to the loneliness and the strangeness of this life—to the absence of friends, the need for conserving air, the strange feeling of an artificial gravity that varied slightly at the whim of impurities in the station fuel. To everything, in fact, but her husband. She seemed to sense his eyes on her, for she looked up and smiled. "Feeling all right, dear?" she asked. "Naturally. How about you?" "As well as can be expected." "Not very good, then." She didn't reply, and he thought, She hates to admit it, but she really envies me. Well, I'll fix it so that she needn't any more. And he stared through the thick, transparent metal window at the beauty of the stars, their light undimmed by dust or atmosphere. The stories told about the wretchedness of the lighthouse keepers who lived on asteroids didn't apply at all to this particular bit of cosmic rock. Life here had been wonderful, incredibly satisfying. At least it had been that way for him. And now it would be the same way for his wife as well. He would have denied it hotly if you had accused him of finding her repulsive. But to certain drunks, the sober man or woman is an offense, and Palmer was much more than a drunk. He was a marak addict, and in the eyes of the marak fiends, all things and all people were wonderful, except those who did not share their taste for the drug. The latter were miserable, depraved creatures, practically subhuman. Of course that was not the way most of them put it. Certainly it was not the way Palmer did. He regarded his wife, he told himself, as an unfortunate individual whom he loved very much, one whom it was his duty to make happy. That her new-found happiness would also hasten her death was merely an unfortunate coincidence. She was sure to die anyway, before long, so why not have her live out her last days in the peace and contentment that only marak could bring? Louise herself would have had an answer to that, if he had ever put the question to her. He was careful never to do so. She laid the book aside and looked up at him again. She said, "Jim, darling, do you think you could get the television set working again?" "Not without a mesotron rectifier." "Even the radio would be a comfort." "It wouldn't do any good, anyway. Too much static from both Mars and Earth this time of year." That was the beauty of the marak, he thought. It changed his mood, and left him calm and in full command of his faculties, able to handle, any problem that came up. He himself, of course, missed neither the radio nor the television, and he never touched the fine library of micro-books. He didn't need them. A shadow flitted by outside the thick window, blotting out for a moment the blaze of stars. It was the shadow of death, as he knew, and he was able to smile even at that. Even death was wonderful. When it finally came, it would find him happy. He would not shudder away from it, as he saw Louise doing now at the sight of the ominous shadow. He smiled at his wife again, remembering the six years they had lived together. It had been a short married life, but—again the word suggested itself to him—a wonderful one. There had been only one quarrel of importance, in the second year, and after that they had got along perfectly. And then, two years ago, he had begun to take marak; and after that he couldn't have quarreled with anyone. It was a paragon among drugs, and it was one of the mysteries of his existence that anybody should object to his using it. Louise had tried to argue with him after she had found out, but he had turned every exchange of views into a peaceful discussion, which from his side, at least, was brimming over with good humor. He had even been good-humored when she tried to slip the antidote into his food. It was this attitude of his that had so often left her baffled and enraged, and he had a good chuckle out of that, too. Imagine a wife getting angry because her husband was too good-natured. But she was never going to get angry again. He would see to that. Not after tonight. A big change was going to take place in her life. She had picked up another book, and for the moment he pitied her. He knew that she wasn't interested in any books. She was merely restless, looking for something to do with herself, seeking some method of killing time before the shadows outside killed it for her for good and all. She couldn't understand his being so peaceful and contented, doing nothing at all. She threw the second book down and snarled—yes, that was the word, "You're such a fool, Jim! You sit there, smug and sure of yourself, your mind blank, just waiting—waiting for them to kill you and me. And you seem actually happy when I mention it." "I'm happy at anything and everything, dear." "At the thought of dying too?" "Living or dying—it doesn't make any difference. Whatever happens, I'm incapable of being unhappy." "If it weren't for the drug, we'd both live. You'd think of a way to kill them before they killed us." "There is no way." "There must be. You just can't think of it while the drug has you in its grip." "The drug doesn't have you, dear." He asked without sarcasm, "Why don't you think of a way?" "Because I lack the training you have. Because I don't have the scientific knowledge, and all, the equipment scattered around means nothing to me." "There's nothing to be done." Her fists clenched. "If you weren't under the influence of the drug—" "You know that it doesn't affect the ability to think. Tests have shown that." "Tests conducted by addicts themselves!" "The fact that they can conduct the tests should be proof enough that there's nothing wrong with their minds." "But there is!" she shouted. "I can see it in you. Oh, I know that you can still add and subtract, and you can draw lines under two words which mean the same thing, but that isn't really thinking. Real thinking means the ability to tackle real problems—hard problems that you can't handle merely with paper and pencil. It means having the incentive to use your brain for a long time at a stretch. And that's what the drug has ruined. It has taken away all your incentive." "I still go about my duties." "Not as well as you used to, and even at that, only because they've become a habit. Just as you talk to me, because I've become a habit. If you'd let me give you the antidote—" He chuckled at the absurdity of her suggestion. Once an addict had been cured, he could not become addicted again. The antidote acted to produce a permanent immunization against the effects of the drug. It was the realization of this fact that made addicts fight so hard against any attempt to cure them. And she thought that she could convince him by argument! He said, "You talk of not being able to think!" "I know," she replied hotly. "I'm the one who blunders… I'm the fool, for arguing with you, when I realize that it's impossible to convince a marak addict." "That's it," he nodded, and chuckled again. But that wasn't quite it. For he was also chuckling at his plan. She had thought him unable to tackle a real problem. Well, he would tackle one tonight. Then she would simply adopt his point of view, and she would no longer be unhappy. After she had accepted the solution he had provided, she would wonder how she could ever have opposed him. He fell into one of his dozes and hardly noticed her glaring at him. When he came out of it at last, it was to hear her say, "We have to stay alive as long as possible. For the sake of the lighthouse." "Of course, my dear. I don't dispute that at all." "And the longer we stay alive, the more chance there is that some ship will pick us up." "Oh, no, there's no chance at all," he asserted cheerfully. "You know that as well as I do. No use deceiving yourself, my love." That, he observed to himself, was the way of non-addicts. They couldn't look facts in the face. They had to cling to a blind and silly optimism which no facts justified. He knew that there was no hope. He was able to review the facts calmly, judiciously, to see the inevitability of their dying—and to take pleasure even in that. He reviewed them for her now. "Let us see, sweetheart, whether I've lost my ability to analyze a situation. We're here with our pretty little lighthouse in the middle of a group of asteroids between Mars and Earth. Ships have been wrecked here, and our task is to prevent further wrecks. The lighthouse sends out a standard and high-frequency beam whose intensity and phase permit astrogators to estimate their distance and direction from us. Ordinarily, there's nothing for us to do. But on the rare occasions when the beam fails—" "That will be the end." "On those occasions," he continued, unruffled by her interruption, "I am supposed to leave my cosy little shelter, so thoughtfully equipped with all the comforts of Earth or Mars, and make repairs as rapidly as possible. Unger the usual conditions, lighthousekeeping is a boring task. In fact, it has been known to drive people insane. That's why it's generally assigned to happily married couples like us, who are accustomed to living quietly, without excitement." "And that," she added bitterly, "is why even happily married couples are usually relieved after one year." "But, darling," he said, his tone cheerful, "you mustn't blame anyone. Who would have expected that a maverick meteor would come at us and displace us from our orbit? And who would have expected that the meteor would have collided first with the outer asteroids, and picked up a cargo of—those?" He gestured toward the window, where a shadow had momentarily paused. By the light that shone through, he could see that the creature was relatively harmless-looking. It had what appeared to be a round, humorous face whose unhumorous intentions would be revealed only at the moment of the kill. The seeming face was actually featureless, for it was not a face at all. It had neither eyes, nor nose, nor mouth. The effect of features was given by the odd blend of colors. Almost escaping notice because of their unusual position and their dull brown hue were the stomach fangs, in neat rows which could be extended and retracted like those of a snake. He noticed that Louise had shuddered again, and said, in the manner of a man making conversation, "Interesting, aren't they? They're rock breathers, you know. They need very little oxygen, and they extract that from the silicates and other oxygen-containing compounds of the rock." "Don't talk about them." "All right, if you don't want me to. But about us—you see, my dear, no one expected us to be lost. And even if the Lighthouse Service has started to look for us, it'll take a long time to find us." "We have food, water, air. If not for those beasts, we'd last until a rescue ship appeared." "But even a rescue ship wouldn't be able to reach us unless we kept the beam going. So far, we've been lucky. It's really functioned remarkably well. But sooner or later it'll go out of order, and then I'll have to go out and fix it. You agree to that, don't you, Louise, dear?" She nodded. She said quietly, "The beam must be kept in order." "That's when the creatures will get me," he said, almost with satisfaction. "I may kill one or two of them, although the way I feel toward everything, I hate to kill anything at all. But you know, sweetheart, that there are more than a dozen of them altogether, and it's clumsy shooting in a spacesuit at beasts which move as swiftly as they do." "And if you don't succeed in fixing what's wrong, if they get you—" She broke down suddenly and began to cry. He looked at her with compassion and smoothed her hair. And yet, under the influence of the drug, he enjoyed even her crying. It was, as he never tired of repeating to himself and to her, a wonderful drug. Under its spell, a man — or a woman — could really enjoy life. Tonight she would begin to enjoy life along with him. THEIR chronometer functioned perfectly, and they still regulated their living habits by it, using Greenwich Earth time. At seven in the evening they sat down to a fine meal. Knowing that tomorrow they might die, Louise had decided that tonight they would eat and drink as well as they could, and she had selected a Christmas special. She had merely to pull a lever, and the food had slid into the oven, to be cooked at once by an intense beam of high-frequency radiation. Jim himself had chosen the wine and the brandy—one of the peculiarities of the marak was that it did not affect the actual enjoyment of alcoholic drinks in the slightest, and one of the sights of the Solar System was to see an addict who was also drunk. But it was a rare sight, for the marak itself created such a pervading sensation of well-being that it often acted as a cure for alcoholism. Once an alcoholic had experienced its effect, he had no need, to get drunk to forget his troubles. He enjoyed his troubles instead, and drank the alcohol for its own sake, for its ability to provide a slightly different sensation, and not for its ability to release him from an unhappy world. So tonight Palmer drank moderately, taking just enough, as it seemed to him, to stimulate his brain. And he did what he now realized he should have done long ago. Unobserved, he placed a tablet of marak in his own wineglass and one in Louise's. The slight bitterness of taste would be hardly perceptible. And after that Louise would be an addict too. That was the way the marak worked. There was nothing mysterious about the craving. It was simply that once you had experienced how delightful it was, you wouldn't do without it. The tablet he had taken that morning was losing its effect, but he felt so pleased at what he was doing that he didn't mind even that. For the next half hour he would enjoy himself simply by looking at Louise, and thinking that now at last they would be united again, no longer kept apart by her silly ideas about doing something to save themselves. And then the drug would take effect, and they would feel themselves lifted to the stars together, never to come down to this substitute for Earth again until the beam failed, and they went out together to make the repairs, and the shadows closed in on them. He had made sure that Louise had her back to him when he dropped the tablet into her glass, and he saw that she suspected nothing. She drank her wine, he noticed, without even commenting on the taste. He felt a sudden impulse to kiss her, and, somewhat to her surprise, he did so. Then he sat down again and went on with the dinner. He waited. An hour later he knew that he had made her happy. She was laughing as she hadn't laughed for a long time. She laughed at the humorous things he said, at the flattering way he raised his glass to her, even at what she saw through the window. Sometimes it seemed to him that she was laughing at nothing at all. He tried to think of how he had reacted the first time he had taken the drug. He hadn't been quite so aggressively cheerful, not quite so—hysterical. But then, the drug didn't have exactly the same effect on everyone. She wasn't as well balanced as he had been. The important thing was that she was happy. Curiously enough, he himself wasn't happy at all. It took about five seconds for the thought to become clear to him, five seconds in which he passed from dull amazement to an enraged and horrified comprehension. He sprang to his feet, overturning the table at which they still sat. And he saw that she wasn't surprised at all, that she still stared at him with a secret satisfaction. "You've cured me!" he cried. "You've fed me the antidote!" And he began to curse. He remembered the other time she had tried it, the time when he had been on the alert, and had easily detected the strange metallic taste of the stuff. He had spat it out, and under the influence of the drug from which she had hoped to save him, he had laughed at her. Now he was unable to laugh. He had been so intent on feeding the tablet to her that he had forgotten to guard himself, and he had been caught. He was normal now—her idea of being normal —and he would never again know the wonderful feeling the drug gave. He began to realize his situation on this horrible lonely asteroid. He cast a glance at the window and at what must be waiting outside, and it was his turn to shudder. He noticed that she was still smiling. He said bitterly, "You're the addict now and I'm cured." She stopped smiling and said quietly, "Jim, listen to me. You're wrong, completely wrong. I didn't give you the antidote, and you didn't give me the drug." "I put it in your wine-glass myself." She shook her head. "That was a tablet I substituted for yours. It's an anti-virus dose from our medicine chest. You took one of the same things. That's why you feel so depressed. You're not under the influence of the drug any more." He- took a deep breath. "But I'm not cured?" "No. I knew that I wouldn't be able to slip you the antidote. The taste is too strong. Later you'll be able to start taking the drug again. That is, if you want to, after experiencing for a time what it is to be normal. But not now. You have to keep your head clear. You have to think of something to save us." "But there's nothing to think of!" he shouted angrily. "I told you that the drug doesn't affect the intelligence!" "I still don't believe you. If you'd only exert yourself, use your mind—" He said savagely, "I'm not going to bother. Give me those marak tablets." She backed away from him. "I thought you might want them. I took no chances. I threw them out." "Out there?" A horrified and incredulous look was on his face. "You mean that I'm stuck here without them? Louise, you fool, there's no help for us! The other way, at least, we'd have died happy. But now—" He stared out the window. The shadows were there in full force. Not one now, but two, three—he counted half a dozen. It was almost as if they knew that the end had come. They had reason to be happy, he thought with despair. And perhaps—he shrank back from the thought, but it forced itself into his mind—perhaps, now that all happiness had gone, and wretchedness had taken its place, he might as well end everything. There would be no days to spend torturing himself in anticipation of a horrible- death. Louise exclaimed suddenly, "Jim, look! They're frolicking!" He looked. The beasts certainly were gay. One of them leaped from the airless surface of the asteroid and sailed over its fellow. He had never seen them do that before. Usually they clung to the rocky surface. Another was spinning around oddly, as if it had lost its sense of balance. Louise said, "They've swallowed the tablets! Over a hundred doses—enough to drug every beast on the asteroid!" For a moment Palmer stared at the gamboling alien drug addicts. Then he put on his spacesuit and took his gun, and, without the slightest danger to himself, went out and shot them one by one. He noted, with a kind of grim envy, that they died happy. —WILLIAM MORRISON Shipping Clerk IF THERE had ever been a time when Ollie Keith hadn't been hungry, it was so far in the past that he couldn't remember it. He was hungry now as he walked through the alley, his eyes shifting lusterlessly from one heap of rubbish to the next. He was hungry through and through, all one hun­dred and forty pounds of him, the flesh distributed so gauntly over his tall frame that in spots it seemed about to wear through, as his clothes had. That it hadn't done so in forty-two years sometimes struck Ollie as in the nature of a miracle. He worked for a junk collector and he was unsuccessful in his present job, as he had been at everything else. Ollie had followed the first part of the rags-to-riches formula with classic exactness. He had been born to rags, and then, as if that hadn't been enough, his parents had died, and he had been left an orphan. He should have gone to the big city, found a job in the rich merchant's counting house, and saved the pretty daughter, acquiring her and her fortune in the process. It hadn't worked out that way. In the orphanage where he had spent so many unhappy years, both his food and his education had been skimped. He had later been hired out to a farmer, but he hadn't been strong enough for farm labor, and he had been sent back. His life since then had followed an unhappy pattern. Lack­ing strength and skill, he had been unable to find and hold a good job. Without a good job, he had been unable to pay for the food and medical care, and for the training he would have needed to acquire strength and skill. Once, in the search for food and training, he had offered himself to the Army, but the doctors who examined him had quickly turned thumbs down, and the Army had rejected him with contempt. They wanted better human material than that. How he had managed to survive at all to the present was another miracle. By this time, of course, he knew, as the radio comic put it, that he wasn't long for this world. And to make the passage to another world even easier, he had taken to drink. Rot gut stilled the pangs of hunger even more effec­tively than inadequate food did. And it gave him the first moments of happiness, spurious though they were, that he could remember. Now, as he sought through the heaps of rubbish for usable rags or redeemable milk bottles, his eyes lighted on something unexpected. Right at the edge of the curb lay a small nut, species indeterminate. If he had his usual luck, it would turn out to be withered inside, but at least he could hope for the best. He picked up the nut, banged it futilely against the ground, and then looked around for a rock with which to crack it. None was in sight. Rather fearfully, he put it in his mouth and tried to crack it between his teeth. His teeth were in as poor condition as the rest of him, and the chances were that they would crack before the nut did. The nut slipped and Ollie gurgled, threw his hands into the air and almost choked. Then he got it out of his wind-pipe and, a second later, breathed easily. The nut was in his stomach, still uncracked. And Ollie, it seemed to him, was hungrier than ever. The alley was a failure. His life had been a progression from rags to rags, and these last rags were inferior to the first. There were no milk bottles, there was no junk worth sal­vaging. At the end of the alley was a barber shop, and here Ollie had a great and unexpected stroke of luck. He found a bottle. The bottle was no container for milk and it wasn't empty. It was standing on a small table near an open window in the rear of the barber shop. Ollie found that he could get it by simply stretching out his long, gaunt arm for it, without climbing in through the window at all. He took a long swig, and then another. The liquor tasted far better than anything he had ever bought. When he returned the bottle to its place, it was empty. Strangely enough, despite its excellent quality, or perhaps, he thought, because of it, the whiskey failed to have, its usual effect on him. It left him completely sober and clear-eyed, but hungrier than ever. In his desperation, Ollie did something that he seldom dared to do. He went into a restaurant, not too good a restau­rant or he would never have been allowed to take a seat, and ordered a meal he couldn't pay for. He knew what would happen, of course, after he had eaten. He would put on an act about having lost his money, but that wouldn't fool the manager for more than one second. If the man was feeling good and needed help, he'd let Ollie work the price out washing dishes. If he was a little grumpy and had all the dishwashers he needed, he'd have them boot the tar out of Ollie and then turn him over to the police. The soup was thick and tasty, although tasty in a way that no gourmet would have appreciated. The mess was food, however, and Ollie gulped it down gratefully. But it did nothing to satisfy his hunger. Likewise, the stew had every possible leftover thrown into it, and none of it gave Ollie any feeling of satisfaction. Even the dessert and the muddy coffee left him as empty as before. The waiter had been in the back room with the cook. Now Ollie saw him signal to the manager, and watched the man­ager hasten back. He closed his eyes. They were onto him; there was no doubt about it. For a moment he considered trying to get out of the front door before they closed in, but there was another waiter present, keeping an eye on the patrons, and he knew that he would never make it. He took a deep breath and waited for the roof to fall in on him. He heard the manager's footsteps and opened his eyes. The manager said, "Uh—look, bud, about that meal you ate—" "Not bad," observed Ollie brightly. "Glad you liked it." He noticed little beads of sweat on the manager's forehead, and wondered what had put them there. He said, "Only trouble is, it ain't fillin'. I'm just as hungry as I was before." "It didn't fill you up, huh? That's too bad. I'll tell you what I'll do. Rather than see you go away dissatisfied, I won't charge you for the meal. Not a cent." Ollie blinked. This made no sense whatever. All the same, if not for the gnawing in his stomach, he would have picked himself up and run. As it was, he said, "Thanks. Guess in that case I'll have another order of stew. Maybe this time it'll stick to my ribs." "Not the stew," replied the manager nervously. "You had the last that was left. Try the roast beef." "Hiram, that's more than I was gonna spend." "No charge," said the manager. "For you, no charge at all." "Then gimme a double order. I feel starved." The double order went down the hatch, yet Ollie felt just as empty as ever. But he was afraid to press his luck too far, and after he had downed one more dessert—also without charge—he reluctantly picked himself up and walked out. He was too hungry to spend any more time wondering why he had got a free meal. In the back room of the restaurant, the manager sank weakly into a chair. "I was afraid he was going to insist on paying for it. Then we'd really have been on a spot." "Guess he was too glad to get it for free," the cook said. "Well, if anything happens to him now, it'll happen away from here." "Suppose they take a look at what's in his stomach." "He still won't be able to sue us. What did you do with the rest of that stew?" "It's in the garbage." "Cover it up. We don't want dead cats and dogs all over the lace. And next time you reach for the salt, make sure there isn't an insect powder label on it." "It was an accident; it could happen to anybody," said the cook philosophically. "You know, maybe we shouldn't have let him go away. Maybe we should've sent him to a doctor." "And pay his bills? Don't be a sap. From now on, he's on his own. Whatever happens to him, we don't know anything about it. We never saw him before." The only thing that was happening to Ollie was that he was getting hungrier and hungrier. He bad, in fact, never before been so ravenous. He felt as if he hadn't eaten in years. He had met with two strokes of luck—the accessible bottle and the incredibly generous manager. They had left him just as hungry and thirsty as before. Now he encountered a third gift of fortune. On the plate glass window of a restaurant was the flamboyant announcement: EATING CONTEST TONIGHT AT MONTE'S RESTAURANT! FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE WORLD! ENTRIES BEING TAKEN NOW! NO CHARGE IF YOU EAT ENOUGH FOR AT LEAST THREE PEOPLE. Ollie's face brightened. The way he felt, he could have eaten enough for a hundred. The fact that the contestants, as he saw upon reading further, would be limited to hard-boiled eggs made no difference to him. For once he would have a chance to eat everything he could get down his yawning gullet. That night it was dear that neither the judges nor the audi­ence thought much of Ollie as an eater. Hungry he undoubt­edly was, but it was obvious that his stomach had shrunk from years of disuse, and besides, he didn't have the build of a born eater. He was long and skinny, whereas the other contestants seemed almost as broad and wide as they were tall. In gaining weight, as in so many other things, the motto seemed to be that those who already had would get more. Ollie had too little to start with. In order to keep the contest from developing an anticlimax, they started with Ollie, believing that he would be lucky if he ate ten eggs. Ollie was so ravenous that he found it difficult to control himself, and he made a bad impression by gulping the first egg as fast as he could. A real eater would have let the egg slide down rapidly yet gently, without making an obvious effort. This uncontrolled, amateur speed, thought the judges, could only lead to a stomachache. Ollie devoured the second egg, the third, the fourth, and the rest of his allotted ten. At that point, one of the judges asked, "How do you feel?" "Hungry." "Stomach hurt?" "Only from hunger. It feels like it got nothin' in it. Somehow, them eggs don't fill me up." Somebody in the audience laughed. The judges exchanged glances and ordered more eggs brought on. From the crowd of watchers, cries of encouragement came to Ollie. At this stage, there was still nobody who thought that he had a chance. Ollie proceeded to go through twenty eggs, forty, sixty, a hundred. By that time, the judges and the crowd were in a state of unprecedented excitement. Again a judge demanded, "How do you feel?" "Still hungry. They don't fill me up at all." "But those are large eggs. Do you know how much a hun­dred of them weigh? Over fifteen pounds!" "I don't care how much they weigh. I'm still hungry." "Do you mind if we weigh you?" "So long as you don't stop givin' me eggs, okay." They brought out a scale and Ollie stepped on it. He weighed one hundred and thirty-nine pounds, on the nose. Then he started eating eggs again. At the end of his second hundred, they weighed him once more. Ollie weighed one hundred thirty-eight and three-quarters. The judges stared at each other and then at Ollie. For a moment the entire audience sat in awed silence, as if watching a miracle. Then the mood of awe passed. One of the judges said wisely, "He palms them and slips them to a confederate." "Out here on the stage?" demanded another judge. "Where's his confederate? Besides, you can see for yourself that he eats them. You can watch them going down his throat." "But that's impossible. If they really went down his throat, he'd gain weight." "I don't know how he does it," admitted the other. "But he does." "The man is a freak. Let's get some doctors over here." Ollie ate another hundred and forty-three eggs, and then had to stop because the restaurant ran out of them. The other contestants never even had a chance to get started. When the doctor came and they told him the story, his first impulse seemed to be to grin. He knew a practical joke when he heard one. But they put Ollie on the scales--by this time he weighed only a hundred thirty-eight and a quarter pounds—and fed him a two pound loaf of bread. Then they weighed him again. He was an even one hundred and thirty-eight. "At this rate, he'll starve to death," said the doctor, who opened his little black bag and proceeded to give Ollie a thorough examination. Ollie was very unhappy about it because it interfered with his eating, and he felt more hungry than ever. But they prom­ised to feed him afterward and, more or less unwillingly, he submitted. "Bad teeth, enlarged heart, lesion on each lung, flat feet, hernia, displaced vertebrae—you name it and he has it," said the doctor. "Where the devil did he come from?" Ollie was working on an order of roast beef and was too busy to reply. Somebody said, "He's a rag-picker. I've seen him around." "When did he start this eating spree?" With stuffed mouth, Ollie mumbled, "Today." "Today, eh? What happened today that makes you able to eat so much?" "I just feel hungry." "I can see that. Look, how about going over to the hospital so we can really examine you?" "No, sir," said Ollie. "You ain't pokin' no needles into me." "No needles," agreed the doctor hastily. If there was no other way to get blood samples, they could always drug him with morphine and he'd never know what had happened. "We'll just look at you. And we'll feed you all you can eat." "All I can eat? It's a deal!" The humor was crude, but it put the point across—the pho­tographer assigned to the contest had snapped a picture of Ollie in the middle of gulping two eggs. One was traveling down his gullet, causing a lump in his throat, and the other was being stuffed into his mouth at the same time. The caption writer had entitled the shot: THE MAN WHO BROKE THE ICEBOX AT MONTE'S, and the column alongside was headed, Eats Three Hundred and Forty-three Eggs. "I'm Hungry!" He Says. Zolto put the paper down. "This is the one," he said to his wife. "There can be no doubt that this person has found it." "I knew it was no longer in the alley," said Pojim. Ordinarily a comely female, she was now deep in thought, and succeeded in looking beautiful and pensive at the same time. "How are we to get it back without exciting unwelcome attention?" "Frankly," said Zolto, "I don't know. But we'd better think of a way. He must have mistaken it for a nut and swallowed it. Undoubtedly the hospital attendants will take X-rays of him and discover it." "They won't know what it is." "They will operate to remove it, and then they will find out." Pojim nodded, "What I don't understand," she said, "is why it had this effect. When we lost it, it was locked." "He must have opened it by accident. Some of these crea­tures, I have noticed, have a habit of trying to crack nuts with their teeth. He must have bitten on the proper switch." "The one for inanimate matter? I think, Zolto, that you're right. The stomach contents are collapsed and passed into our universe through the transfer. But the stomach itself, being part of a living creature, cannot pass through the same switch. And the poor creature continually loses weight because of metabolism. Especially, of course, when he eats." "Poor creature, you call him? You're too soft-hearted, Pojim. What do you think we'll be if we don't get the transfer back ?" He hunched up his shoulders and laughed. Pojim said, "Control yourself, Zolto. When you laugh, you don't look human, and you certainly don't sound it." "What difference does it make? We're alone." "You can never tell when we'll be overheard." "Don't change the subject. What are we supposed to do about the transfer?" "We'll think of a way," said Pojim, but he could see she was worried. In the hospital, they had put Ollie into a bed. They had wanted a nurse to bathe him, but he had objected violently to this indignity, and finally they had sent in a male orderly to do the job. Now, bathed, shaven and wearing a silly little night-gown that made him ashamed to look at himself, he was lying in bed, slowly starving to death. A dozen empty plates, the remains of assorted specialties of the hospital, filled with vitamins and other good things, lay around him. Everything had tasted fine while going down, but nothing seemed to have stuck to him. All he could do was brood about the puzzled and anxious looks on the doctors' faces when they examined him. The attack came without warning. One moment Ollie was lying there unhappily, suffering hunger pangs, and the next moment somebody had punched him in the stomach. The shock made him start and then look down. But there was nobody near him. The doctors had left him alone while they looked up articles in textbooks and argued with each other. He felt another punch, and then another and another. He yelled in fright and pain. After five minutes, a nurse looked in and asked casually, "Did you call?" "My stomach!" groaned Ollie. "Somebody's hittin' me in my stomach!" "It's a tummyache," she said with a cheerful smile. "It should teach you not to wolf your food." Then she caught a glimpse of his stomach, from which Ollie, in his agony, had cast off the sheet, and she gulped. It was swollen like a watermelon—or, rather, like a watermelon with great warts. Lumps stuck out all over it. She rushed out, calling, "Doctor Manson! Doctor Manson!" When she returned with two doctors, Ollie was in such acute misery that he didn't even notice them. One doctor said, "Well, I'll be damned!" and began tapping the swollen stomach. The other doctor demanded, "When did this happen?" "Right now, I guess," replied the nurse. "Just a few minutes ago his stomach was as flat as the way it was when you saw it." "We'd better give him a shot of morphine to put him out of his pain," said the first doctor, "and then we'll X-ray him." Ollie was in a semi-coma as they lifted him off his bed and wheeled him into the X-ray room. He didn't hear a word of the ensuing discussion about the photographs, although the doctors talked freely in front of him—freely and pro­fanely. It was Dr. Manson who demanded, "What in God's name are those things, anyway?" "They look like pineapples and grapefruit," replied the bewildered X-ray specialist. "Square-edged pineapples? Grapefruit with one end pointed?" "I didn't say that's what they are," returned the other de­fensively. "I said that's what they look like. The grapefruit could be eggplant," he added in confusion. "Eggplant, my foot. How the devil did they get into his stomach, anyway? He's been eating like a pig, but even a pig couldn't have gotten those things down its throat." "Wake him up and ask him." "He doesn't know any more than we do," said the nurse. "He told me that it felt as if somebody was hitting him in the stomach. That's all he'd be able to tell us." "He's got the damnedest stomach I ever heard of," mar­veled Dr. Manson. "Let's open it up and take a look at it from the inside." "We'll have to get his consent," said the specialist nerv­ously. "I know it would be interesting, but we can't cut into him unless he's willing." "It would be for his own good. We'd get that unsliced fruit salad out of him." Dr. Manson stared at the X-ray plates again. "Pineapples, grapefruit, something that looks like a banana with a small bush on top. Assorted large round objects. And what looks like a nut. A small nut." If Ollie had been aware, he might have told Dr. Manson that the nut was the kernel of the trouble. As it was, all he could do was groan. "He's coming to," said the nurse. "Good," asserted Dr. Manson. "Get a release, Nurse, and the minute he's capable of following directions, have him sign it." In the corridor outside, two white-clad interns stopped at the door of Ollie's room and listened. They could not properly have been described as man and woman, but at any rate one was male and the other female. If you didn't look at them too closely, they seemed to be human, which, of course, was what they wanted you to think. "Just as I said," observed Zolto. "They intend to operate. And their attention has already been drawn to the nut." "We can stop them by violence, if necessary. But I abhor violence." "I know, dear," Zolto said thoughtfully. "What has hap­pened is clear enough. He kept sending all that food through, and our people analyzed it and discovered what it was. They must have been surprised to discover no message from us, but after a while they arrived at the conclusion that we needed some of our own food and they sent it to us. It's a good thing that they didn't send more of it at one time." "The poor man must be in agony as it is.” "Never mind the poor man. Think of our own situation." "But don't you see, Zolto? His digestive juices can't dis­solve such unfamiliar chemical constituents, and his stomach must be greatly irritated." She broke off for a moment as the nurse came past them, giving them only a casual glance. The X-ray specialist fol­lowed shortly, his face reflecting the bewilderment he felt as a result of studying the plate he was holding. "That leaves only Dr. Manson with him," said Zolto. "Pojim, I have a plan. Do you have any of those pandiges­tive tablets with you?" "I always carry them. I never know when in this world I'll run into something my stomach can't handle." "Fine." Zolto stepped back from the doorway, cleared his throat, and began to yell, "Calling Dr. Manson! Dr. Manson, report to surgery!" "You've been seeing too many of their movies," said Pojim. But Zolto's trick worked. They heard Dr. Manson mutter, "Damn!" and saw him rush into the corridor. He passed them without even noticing that they were there. "We have him to ourselves," said Zolto. "Quick, the tablets." They stepped into the room, where Zolto passed a small in­halator back and forth under Ollie's nose. Ollie jerked away from it, and his eyes opened. "Take this," said Pojim, with a persuasive smile. "It will ease your pain." And she put two tablets into Ollie's sur­prised mouth. Automatically, Ollie swallowed and the tablets sped down to meet the collection in his stomach. Pojim gave him another smile, and then she and Zolto hurriedly left the room. To Ollie, things seemed to be happening in more and more bewildering fashion. No sooner had these strange doctors left than Dr. Manson came rushing back, cursing, in a way that would have shocked Hippocrates, the unknown idiot who had summoned him to surgery. Then the nurse came in, with a paper. Ollie gathered that he was being asked to sign something. He shook his head vigorously. "Not me. I don't sign nothin', sister." "It's a matter of life and death. Your own life and death. We have to get those things out of your stomach." "No, sir, you're not cuttin' me open." Dr. Manson gritted his teeth in frustration. "You don't feel so much pain now because of the morphine I gave you. But it's going to wear off in a few minutes and then you'll be in agony again. You'll have to let us operate." "No, sir," repeated Ollie stubbornly. "You're not cuttin' me open." And then he almost leaped from his bed. His already dis­tended stomach seemed to swell outward, and before the as­tonished eyes of doctor and nurse, a strange new bump ap­peared. "Help !" yelled Ollie. "That's exactly what we're trying to do," said Dr. Manson angrily. "Only you won't let us. Now sign that paper, man, and stop your nonsense." Ollie groaned and signed. The next moment he was being rushed into the operating room. The morphine was wearing off rapidly, and he lay, still groaning, on the table. From the ceiling, bright lights beat down upon him. Near his head the anesthetist stood with his cone of sleep poised in readiness. At one side a happy Dr. Manson was slipping rubber gloves on his antiseptic hands, while the attentive nurses and assistants waited. Two interns were standing near the doorway. One of them, Zolto, said softly, "We may have to use violence after all. They must not find it." "I should have given him a third tablet," said Pojim, the other intern, regretfully. "Who would have suspected that the action would be so slow?" They fell silent. Zolto slipped a hand into his pocket and grasped the weapon, the one he had hoped he wouldn't have to use. Dr. Manson nodded curtly and said, "Anesthetic." And then, as the anesthetist bent forward, it happened. Ollie's uncovered stomach, lying there in wait for the knife, seemed to heave and boil. Ollie shrieked and, as the as­sembled medicos watched in dazed fascination, the knobs and bumps smoothed out. The whole stomach began to shrink, like a cake falling in when some one has slammed the oven door. The pandigestive tablets had finally acted. Ollie sat up. He forgot that he was wearing the skimpy and shameless nightgown, forgot, too, that he had a roomful of spectators. He pushed away the anesthetist who tried to stop him. "I feel fine," he said. "Lie down," ordered Dr. Manson sternly. "We're going to operate and find out what's wrong with you." "You're not cuttin' into me," said Ollie. He swung his feet to the floor and stood up. "There ain't nothin' wrong with me. I feel wonderful. For the first time in my life I ain't hungry, and I'm spoilin' for trouble. Don't nobody try to stop me." He started to march across the floor, pushing his way through the protesting doctors. "This way," said one of the interns near the door. "We'll get your clothes." Ollie looked at her in suspicion, but she went on, "Remember? I'm the one who gave you the tablets to make the pain go away." "They sure worked," said Ollie happily, and allowed himself to be led along. He heard the uproar behind him, but he paid no attention. Whatever they wanted, he was getting out of here, fast. There might have been trouble, but at a critical point the public address system swung into operation, thanks to the foresight of his intern friends, who had rigged up a special portable attachment to the microphone. It started calling Dr. Manson, calling Dr. Kolanyi, calling Dr. Pumber, and all the others. In the confusion, Ollie escaped and found himself, for the first time in his life, a passenger in a taxicab. With him were the two friendly interns, no longer in white. "Just in case any more of those lumps appear in your stom­ach," said the female, "take another couple of tablets." She was so persuasive that Ollie put up only token resist­ance. The tablets went down his stomach, and then he settled back to enjoy the cab ride. It was only later that he wondered where they were taking him. By that time, he was too sleepy to wonder very much. With the aid of the first two tablets, he had digested the equivalent of a tremendous meal. The blood coursed merrily in his veins and arteries, and he had a warm sensation of well-being. As the taxi sped along, his eyes closed. "You transmitted the message in one of the latter tablets?" asked Zolto in their native tongue. "I have explained all that has happened," replied his wife. "They will stop sending food and wait for other direc­tives." "Good. Now we'll have to get the transfer out of him as soon as possible. We ourselves can operate and he will never be the wiser." "I wonder," said Pojim. "Once we have the transfer, it will only be a nuisance to us. We'll have to guard it carefully and be in continual fear of losing it. Perhaps it would be more sensible to leave it inside him." "Inside him? Pojim, my sweet, have you taken leave of your senses?" "Not at all. It is easier to guard a man than a tiny object, I took a look at one of the X-ray plates, and it is dear that the transfer switch has adhered to his stomach. It will remain there indefinitely. Suppose we focus a transpositor on that stomach of his. Then, as the objects we want arrive from our own universe in their collapsed condition, we can transpose them into our laboratory, enlarge them, and send them off to Aldebaran, where they are needed." "But suppose that he and that stomach of his move around!" "He will stay in one place if we treat him well. Don't you see, Zolto? He is a creature who has always lacked food. We shall supply him such food as his own kind have never dreamed of, complete with pandigestion fluid. At the same time, we shall set him to doing light work in order to keep him busy. Much of his task will involve studying and improv­ing himself. And at night we shall receive the things we need from our own universe." "And when we have enough to supply the colony on Alde­baran II?" "Then it will be time enough to remove the transfer switch." Zolto laughed. It was a laugh that would have been cur­iously out of place in a human being, and if the taxi driver hadn't been so busy steering his way through traffic, he would have turned around to look. Pojim sensed the danger, and held up a warning finger. Zolto subsided. "You have remarkable ideas, my wife. Still, I see no reason why this should not work. Let us try it." Ollie awoke to a new life. He was feeling better than he had ever felt in his entire miserable existence. The two interns who had come along with him had been transformed magi­cally into a kindly lady and gentleman, who wished to hire him to do easy work at an excellent salary. Ollie let himself be hired. He had his choice of things to eat now, but, strangely enough, he no longer had his old hunger. It was as if he were being fed from some hidden source, and he ate, one might almost have said, for the looks of it. The little he did con­sume, however, seemed to go a long way. He gained weight, his muscles hardened, his old teeth fell out and new ones appeared. He himself was astonished at this latter phenomenon, but after his previous experience at the hospital, he kept his astonishment to himself. The spots on his lungs disappeared, his spine straightened. After a time he reached a weight of a hundred and ninety pounds, and his eyes were bright and clear. At night he slept the sleep of the just—or the drugged. At first he was happy. But after several months, there came a feeling of boredom. He sought out Mr. and Mrs. Zolto, and said, "I'm sorry, I can't stay here any longer." "Why?" asked the lady. "There's no room here, ma'am, for advancement," he said, almost apologetically. "I've been studyin' and I got ideas about things I can do. All sorts of ideas." Pojim and Zolto, who had planted the ideas, nodded sol­emnly. Pojim said, "We're glad to hear that, Ollie. The fact is that we ourselves had decided to move to—to a warmer climate, some distance away from here. We were wondering how you'd get along without us." "Don't you worry about me. I'll do fine." "Well, that's splendid. But it would be convenient to us if you could wait till tomorrow. We'd like to give you something to remember us by." "I'll be glad to wait, ma'am." That night Ollie had a strange nightmare. He dreamed that he was on the operating table again, and that the doctors and nurses were once more dosing in on him. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. And then the two interns were there, once more wearing their uniforms. The female said, "It's all right. It's perfectly all right. We're just removing the transfer switch. In the morning you won't even remember what happened." And, in fact, in the morning he didn't. He had only a vague feeling that something had happened. They shook hands with him and they gave him a very fine letter of reference, in case he tried to get another job, and Mrs. Zolto presented him with an envelope in which there were several bills whose size later made his eyes almost pop out of his head. He walked down the street as if it belonged to him, or were going to. Gone was the slouch, gone the bleariness of the eyes, gone the hangdog look. Gone was all memory of the dismal past. And then Ollie had a strange feeling. At first it seemed so peculiar that he couldn't figure out what it was. It started in his stomach, which seemed to turn over and almost tie itself into a knot. He felt a twinge of pain and winced almost per­ceptibly. It took him several minutes to realize what it was. For the first time in months, he was hungry. NEW UNIVERSE Zaron found a new universe to conquer—but he couldn't come back to gloat. . . . By WILLIAM MORRISON THEY called him "Lord of the Universe," and he deserved the title. That should have been enough for any reasonable being. But no one who has ever been a Lord of anything is quite reasonable, and Zaron was least reasonable of all Lords. Like a less famous predecessor on one of the more insignificant planets of a minor sun, he sighed for new worlds to conquer, or rather, new universes. MacPalnar, who had been trained to loyalty from birth, realized that it was his duty to think of a way of satisfying so noble an ambition. You mustn't suppose that MacPalnar's loyalty had anything mystic about it. MacPalner, in fact, could see most things well enough. The feeling of loyalty was something foreign that had been injected into his system, as into the system of every other subject. Loyalty to Zaron was the cement that held together a far-flung empire, that maintained law and order, that did this, that, and the other wonderful thing. At least, that was the official way of putting it. Therefore, loyalty was inculcated by conscious as well as by hypnotic indoctrination. The whole thing was done with such efficiency and skill that even the psychologists who had devised the program couldn't escape it. They despised Zaron, but after being subjected to their own methods they were as loyal to him as was every one else. MacPalnar, who specialized in the mathematical and physical sciences, knew less about Zaron than some of his colleagues did, and therefore had a higher opinion of him. But even those of the Lord's weaknesses that he did see didn't prevent him from being loyal. And now there was this matter of seeking new universes. Any one else would have thought the quest absurd and hopeless to start with. But MacPalnar had seen so many absurd and hopeless problems solved in unexpected ways that he tackled this one quite calmly. First, though, he had to find out exactly what it was that had made Zaron express his little wish. As a member of the Army's Science Staff, he decided that the best person to tell him was General Ragnar, Chief of Intelligence. A brief message to the general, who was on another planet, informed the latter that MacPalnar would like a few moments of his time. The general, who had nothing on his mind but some highly important and dull Army business, replied that it would be a pleasure to speak to the scientist. So MacPalnar set his personal transporter with the proper coordinates, pressed the proper buttons, and a few seconds later found himself facing the general in the latter's own office. With all space lying practically at his fingertips, the general found no great need of it in his office. His office was tiny, but extremely comfortable. When he felt like having privacy, he made the walls opaque. When he felt more sociable, he made them transparent, and looked through them to see what was going on in the territory under his jurisdiction. AT THE moment he felt that he and MacPalnar might prefer privacy. MacPalnar agreed with him. After the usual formal greetings, he said, "I wonder, General, how far our Universe does extend. Have we really conquered it all?" "All that matters." General Ragnar reached for a map button, and the side wall seemed to disappear. A panorama of stars and nebulae began to unroll itself before them. "Here," he said, "is our Universe. This is supposed to be top secret, but actually it doesn't matter too much. There is no enemy to take advantage of the knowledge." "All the same, I shall breathe a word to no one. Loyalty requires silence," said MacPalnar. General Ragnar nodded. "Of course. At any rate, everything we want to bother with is ours. The distance in light years doesn't matter, for as you know, we can get where we please in no time at all, using the fourth dimension. Do you follow me?" "Without the slightest trouble." "Frankly, MacPalnar, I can't follow myself. I don't claim to be a scientist, you know. I'm only a military man, and it's my job to know how to do things, not to explain them. There's some vague analogy I remember from my student days, something about a sheet of paper—" MacPalnar smiled. "Allow me to do the explaining," he said. "Let us suppose we were two-dimensional creatures, living on a sheet of paper that had no thickness, none at all, and that the sheet stretched infinitely in all directions. If we could travel only on the paper, then the further away a place was, the longer it would take us to get there. But suppose the sheet were rolled up, and we could travel through the paper. Then we could cut through light-years in seconds. "That's analogous to the way the thing works. We live in three dimensions, not two. But by passing through a fourth dimension, we can give the effect of traveling much faster than light. Get it now?" "Yes, thanks. Well, as I was saying, because of this method you've just explained, every star and every planet is quickly accessible to us. We've explored practically everything that seemed interesting. The planets without life have been of interest as sources of raw materials. Those with life have been important as additional homes of subjects of Zaron—and as possible enemies of the empire." "I understand that some of them have been quite dangerous." "A few put up strenuous opposition. But, and I think that this is the trouble, there were only a few. And they have been overcome. Now there's no danger that will keep Zaron interested." MacPalnar said slowly, "I see. I rather pity him." "Why? I'm as loyal as any one, MacPalnar, and I'd give my life to defend Zaron — I can't help myself, because that's bred into me—but I don't see anything to pity. My loyalty doesn't take away my clarity of vision. Just give me a chance to be in his place, that's all." "Well, it's not his fault if he's stupid. He just happened to be at the head when the empire was consolidated. And he benefited." "Did he? He'd be better off as an ordinary man. By all the curses of whatever hell there is, what sorry fate put us under such a halfwit Emperor? If only he could be overthrown, he'd be happier, and we'd all breathe easier." "True enough," said MacPalnar. "But he can't be. And if any one tried to overthrow him, our carefully instilled loyalty would instantly force us to defend him. So would the loyalty of every man, woman, and child in the empire." "How about the unintelligent creatures?" asked the general hopefully. "They don't have loyalty instilled into them. Do you think that they might accidentally—" "I'm afraid there's no hope there, General, so let's not waste time thinking about it. We'll agree that the situation is unfortunate and that we all suffer conflicts between the common sense requirement to get rid of Zaron and our conditioned need to fight for him. Now, back to our problem. What new conquests can Zaron make that will rank as new universes?" "None." "Any galaxies unconquered? Any planets?" NOTHING of any consequence. There would be no resistance that we wouldn't quickly overcome. We might slaughter a few billion people, but Zaron is tired of even that amusement." "How about personal attainments?" "He has everything that he prizes. A few lifetimes ago he was made an immortal—the only one anywhere. In fact, that's his chief trouble. He's lived long enough to be bored. "You can't get him interested in anything intellectual," continued the general flatly. "He has the mind of an eight-year-old child. Imagine him as the beneficiary of all the wonders of science—and lacking either the interest or the intelligence to understand them. It isn't the same in my case," the General added hastily. "I like science. It's just that I lack time to study it. However, as I meant to say, for a time he was interested in expanding." "I know. When did that pall on him?" "When he found that the more he expanded, the duller his sensations became. We made him almost as big as an average moon, but he didn't like it, and had to be reduced back to twice normal size. Some of your scientists pointed out that he could sharpen his sensations by contracting, but he thought it beneath his dignity to shrink, and refused to try it." "How about taking other shapes?" "The amusement has worn off that too. He didn't mind at first, but after a while he decided that he liked the shape to which he was accustomed. Besides, he said that any shape he was born in must have been meant by nature to be the highest of all, and he preferred to remain that way. No one dared remind him that he was born as a baby, and not as an adult." "Quite a problem," murmured MacPalnar. "Now, if he were interested in scientific problems, we'd be able to do something for him. This question of fourth and higher dimensions—" "They'd only confuse his mind. Unless — here's an idea, MacPalnar. Is there any way of converting your scientific problems into a personal form? Put them in a personal way, and he'll realize that science is always conquering new universes." "Thank you," said MacPalnar. "Don't mention it. As I told you, I appreciate science, even though I lack time to understand it. But even I am forced to understand things when they're put in a way that affects me personally. So I suggest that if you could do that, you'd be getting places." "That's what will have to be done," agreed MacPalnar. "Exactly how, of course, is not so clear. However—" He interrupted himself. "Eureka!" "What was that remark?" "An ancient expression still current among scientists. It means that I have found it. It just shows what you can do when you keep trying!" THERE was the task of explaining to Zaron exactly what new universe he was going to conquer. MacPalnar and the general, as co-authors of the idea, went together to see him. There were endless guards, protective devices, psychological traps, and other appurtenances of Lordship that had to be passed before they could be ushered into the Presence. Not that Zaron really needed them. He had long before been made practically invulnerable to all but the most elaborate weapons. But these difficulties put into the way of lowly subjects were indispensible means of emphasizing his own grandeur and magnificence. For the sake of this audience he had magnified himself to three times normal size. He sat with inconceivable dignity on his throne, a luminous crown upon his head, a background of tiny blazing lights, like the stars of the universe he ruled, framing his majestic figure. Involuntarily, even against his conscious will, MacrPalnar felt the sense of loyalty rise in his throat and almost choke him. At the same time, he could not help wondering how he was going to explain to that feeble and unexercised intellect exactly what new glory he had in store for it. He and the general both bowed deeply. A rolling bass voice said -grandly, "Rise, loyal subjects. Rise and speak." They had given him a new voice, a remade body, everything but a better brain. They would have given him that too, thought MacPalnar, if he hadn't refused it so decisively. He had been too much in love with his own weak mind to want it changed in the slightest. His subjects had to be loyal to the old one, such as it was. MacPalnar trembled as he rose to his feet. "Your Supremacy," he said respectfully, "we have heard of your wish to have new universes to conquer. As becomes loyal subjects, we have striven to fulfill our Lord's desire. Now we think we have succeeded. We offer you a new universe. Or to be more accurate, an infinity of new universes." "Where is it?" Now, thought MacPalnar, comes the difficult part. He said, "It is not easy to attain, nor is it easy to describe. If Your Supremacy will forgive me for explaining—" "I am not frightened of difficulties. Explain quickly." MacPalnar began with his example of the sheet of paper and the fourth dimension. It was the classic approach to young students of science. His Supremacy said, "This new universe you offer me is a sheet of paper?" MacPalnar gulped. "Your mind grasps things quickly, Your Lordship. It is, in a way, like a sheet of paper. Suppose we stretch the sheet out flat. And then suppose we expand it into a third dimension, make a thick book of it, as if we had added a large number of sheets of paper." "Instead of one sheet of paper, many. I see." "Your Supremacy's intellect penetrates the murkiness of my explanation. Well, if in a similar way we expand a three-dimensional object into a fourth dimension, that will be like adding an infinite number of three-dimensional objects to it." It was, MacPalnar admitted to himself, a difficult conception to grasp, and he was not surprised at His Supremacy's difficulties. Finally, Zaron said, "Give me the thinking drug. For the moment, I would sharpen my mind." With the aid of the drug and of additional explanations, he finally understood. He was to be stretched, not merely in size in the usual three dimensions, but into an entirely new dimension. He was to become a new being. "Your Supremacy grasps things very quickly," said MacPalnar. "At present we make use of the fourth dimension merely as a means of travel. Being only three-dimensional ourselves, we cannot really master it. We can influence it no more than a two-dimensional figure cut out of a sheet of paper without thickness can influence our own world." "Is the stretching into a new dimension safe?" demanded His Supremacy. "Yes, Lordship, we have experimented, first with inanimate objects and then with living creatures. "Intelligent creatures?" "A shrewd question. Yes, with them too. But we have not dared permit them to remain long. To enter this new universe is to become independent of our own. That is a privilege reserved only for Your Supremacy. Therefore, before extending the subjects of experiment into a new dimension, we have injected them with a slow-acting poison. They lived long enough to show that the experiment was a success, and then they died, that they might not compete in supremacy with Your Supremacy." Zaron sat silent and seemed to try to think. "There is an advantage I have not mentioned," said MacPalnar diffidently. "At present Your Supremacy is almost invulnerable, but not quite. Extending into a fourth dimension, you would be completely indestructible by all three-dimensional creatures. Even if that part of you left in our dimensions were destroyed, you would not be affected. If a three-dimensional creature like myself were to lose a two-dimensional slice of my body, of no thickness, I should not know the difference. Just so, a four-dimensional creature would hardly be aware of a three-dimensional loss." "I should be completely indestructible," mused Zaron. So, despite all the human and mechanical guards, despite all the loyalty, he still feared assassination. "Completely," agreed MacPalnar. It was the decisive argument. MacPalnar had anticipated painful cogitation, lengthy arguments. Zaron said only, "In that case I shall have a mind completely at rest. I need no longer fear even imperfections in the faithful devotion of my subjects. I shall do it." WITH a hand on the switch that would create the force-field and add another dimension to the Lord of the Universe, that would project His Supremacy into new universes to conquer, MacPalnar had a sudden qualm. "Perhaps," he said in panic, "there is a danger, one that we have overlooked." "There is nothing to fear," the general assured him. "Our experiments on that point are decisive." "What of the food and weapons he will need?" "Already dispatched. All the four-dimensional creatures at present in existence are of low intelligence. Lower even than Zaron's. He will have no difficulty with them." "But what if—" "It is too late for objections," said the general impatiently. "Pull the switch!" The switch closed, the current raced through the wires and ionized gaps. Mighty forces concentrated on the Lord of the Universe. MacPalnar watched him change. The great figure seemed to swell inward, to grow and yet to take up less space than before. The face wavered, changed into a strange mass of geometrical surfaces, and then disappeared entirely. The arms went next, then the body, until finally there was left only one mighty foot, a foot that moved restlessly to give an effect of curious distortion. "He is conquering the other universes," said the general solemnly. A wave of emotion drove slowly across MacPalnar's face. A strange light shone in his eyes. "And now," he stammered, "and n-now—" "What is it, MacPalnar?" "And now ours is free," said MacPalnar unexpectedly. "Free of him and his mad whims." They stared at each other. The general asked, "Is this disloyalty?" "No, General. I could not be disloyal if I tried. Zaron is alive and well, as we knew he would be. He will always be alive and well. But subconsciously I realized that doing this would free us of him. I dared not say it to myself, but in one way or another I must have realized it." "He is still Our Supremacy," said the general. "And he always will be. But he will know nothing of us. Remember, if he is infinite to us, we are infinitesimal to him." "I don't understand," said the general. "What do three-dimensional creatures like us know of the two-dimensional worlds that may exist? To us they have no thickness, they are beyond our reach. And in the same way, we are beyond his. We see Zaron only a three-dimensional cross-section, now a foot, later perhaps something else. But what can a foot see of us?" The General shook his head. "Perhaps some day there will be an eye—" "Only a three-dimensional cross-section of a four-dimensional eye. If it perceives us at all, it will perceive us only as shadows, and the four-dimensional brain will think us unreal. Yes, we are beyond Zaron's reach." "Then we need a new emperor?" "No, for the old one is still with us. We shall do without a new one very well, just as we shall do without the interference of the old one. But loyalty is bred into us, and that we cannot escape. So we shall always reverence that part of Zaron that we can still see, even if it be only his foot." "But to render devotion to a foot," objected the general, "is absurd!" "Is it any more absurd than to render devotion to the rest of Zaron? Whether absurd or not, loyalty is loyalty, and must receive its due." And scientist and general, with lumps of loyalty in their throats, and at the same time a sense of relief such as they had never before known, knelt and paid homage to the Supreme Foot. Runaway By WILLIAM MORRISON Heroism is merely daring and ingenuity — at the age of ten— experience can come later! Illustrated by ASHMAN A thin speck appeared in the visor plate and grew with sinister and terrifying speed. Bursts of flame began to play around the rocketing spaceship, the explosions hurtling it from side to side as it twisted and turned in a frantic effort to escape. Rogue Rogan, his vicious lips compressed, his glittering evil eyes narrowed, heart pounding, knew that this was it. This was the day of retribution he had so long feared .. . "PLATO!" Plato leaped to his feet and slid the book under the pillow. Then he seized a textbook at random, and opened it wide. His eyes fastened themselves to the print, seizing upon the meaningless words as if they would save him from a retribution that Rogue Rogan had never had to fear. The dorm master frowned from the doorway. "Plato, didn't you hear the Assembly bell?" "Assembly?" Plato's eyes looked up in mild astonishment. "No, sir, I didn't hear any bell. I was so absorbed in my studying, sir—" He shut the book and placed it back with the others. "I'm sorry, sir. I'm willing to accept my punishment." The dorm master studied the little martyr's expression. "You'd better be, Plato. Now live up to your name and show some intelligence. Run along to Assembly." Plato ran, but he also winced. How he had suffered from that miserable name of his! Even before he had known that the original Plato had been a philosopher, even before he had been capable of understanding what a philosopher was, he had been able to see the amused expression in the eyes of those who heard his name, and had hated them for it. "Show a little intelligence, Plato." Why couldn't they have given him a name like the others? There were so many ordinary, commonplace, manly names from which they might have chosen. Jim, Jack, George, Tom, Bill — anything would have been better than Plato. And infinitely better than what he was sometimes called by his equals — "Plato, the dopy philosopher." HE slipped into his seat in the Assembly quietly, so as not to interrupt the droning of the principal. So they thought his name was funny, did they? Let them laugh at him. He was only ten now, but some day he would really act like a man. Some day it would be he himself, and not a fictional hero like Comets Carter, who would be adventuring on strange planets of unknown suns, tracking down the Rogans and the other criminals who sought refuge in the wide reaches of galactic space. Some day — and then the thought burst on him like a nova exploding in his brain. Why not now? Why not indeed? He was smart; he could take care of himself. Even his masters admitted that, when they weren't carping at him for his daydreaming. Take that model of a spaceship they had brought to school one day, with a retired astrogator to explain to the pupils how the thing was run, and how it avoided stray meteors. He had sat down at the controls, and even the astrogator had been surprised at how confidently he took over the role of pilot, how he got the idea at once. He could do as well in real life. He was sure of it. Give him a really worthwhile problem to work on, instead of these silly questions about square roots and who discovered the third satellite of Mars, and he'd show them. "Thus," declaimed the principal, "you will be prepared to take up your duties—" "Norberts to you," thought Plato. "I'm going to run away." Where to? There were so many stars to go to, such a bewildering number of planets and asteroids. Plato sat lost in thought. A planet whose habitation required a spacesuit was out of the question. Spacesuits his size were hard to get. The sensible thing would be to choose a place where the physical conditions, from gravity to atmospheric pressure and composition would tend to resemble those here on Venus or on Earth. But full of the most thrilling danger. A boy's voice said, "Get up, you dopy philosopher. It's all over." He raised his head and realized that the principal had stopped droning from the platform, that all the pupils were standing up to leave. He stood up and marched out. When the signal for lights out came that night, Plato lay motionless for a time in the dark, his mind racing far too rapidly for him to think of sleep. He had plans to make. And after a time, when the dormitory quieted down, he went to the well of knowledge for inspiration. He slipped on his pair of goggles and threw the special switch he himself had made. The infra-red light flared on, invisible to any one in the room but himself, and he drew his book from its hiding place and resumed his reading. The ship curvetted in space like a prancing steed. Panic-stricken, by the four-dimensional space-warp in which he was trapped, Rogue Rogan stormed at his terrified followers. "By all the devils of the Coal Sack," he shouted, "the man doesn't live who can take me alive! You'll fight and die like men, you hen-hearted cowards..." But they didn't die like men. In fact, they didn't die at all, and Plato permitted a slight sneer to play across his youthful features. Though he considered himself a passionate admirer of Comets Carter, even he felt dissatisfied with the story. When they were trapped, they were never really trapped. Comets Carter, sterling hero that he usually was, always showed weakness of intellect at the last moment, giving his deadly enemy an incredibly simple way out, one that Comets had, in his own incredibly simple way, overlooked. Plato would never be guilty of such stupidity. He himself—and now he was Comets Carter, a quicker-thinker, smarter Carter, dealing out to Rogue Rogan a retribution many eons overdue. He was whistling through space at ten light-speeds. He was compressing light-centuries into a single second. He was He had just time to slip the goggles from his face before his eyes closed in sleep. DURING the day, he continued to make his plans. There was a spaceport a hundred and forty miles away. At night, if the students poked their heads out of the window, they could see the distant ships as points of flame racing away into the darkness, like shooting stars in reverse. He would steal out of his room in the night, take a glider train to the spaceport, and stow away. It would be as simple as that. Of course, he needed money. He might travel at half fare, but even that would be expensive. And then there was the matter of food. He'd have to stay hidden until the spaceship took off and there was no turning back, and at the thought of crouching in some dark hold, motionless for hours, cramped, and with an empty stomach— He wasn't going to starve himself. Even Comets Carter couldn't have gone without eating and got very far in his pursuit of Rogan. Plato would have to acquire money for flight, fare and food. The book, of course, he couldn't think of selling. It was only a decicredit novel in the first place, and somewhat worn at that. And the other students would have laughed at him for reading it. But his infra-red bedside lamp and his goggles and the space-receptor radio he had built out of spare parts—those should bring him enough to travel and live on for a few days. He made his first sale in the free time that evening, to a young squirt in the neighboring dormitory who had a passion akin to his own. He liked to listen to tales of high adventure, of the kind the radiocasters loved and the teachers in the school frowned upon. Having arrived here from Earth only six months before, he had difficulty adjusting to the type of derring-do featured on the Venus stations, and he lacked a space-receptor that would bring him his favorites from the next planet. He snapped up, at the bargain price of ten credits, the receptor that Plato offered. There was a little difficulty with the infra-red lamp and goggles. The customer Plato had selected turned out to be rather suspicious. He demanded, "Where did you steal them?" Plato explained patiently, "I didn't steal them. I made them myself." "That's a lot of hot oxo-nitrogen. You hooked them some place, and if they ever find out—" "Okay," said Plato, "if you don't want them, you don't have to take them. I can sell them to somebody else." He allowed the young skeptic to try the goggles on and read by the light of the lamp. He knew little of the psychology of salesmanship, but with what might be called Platonic shrewdness, he sensed that once the prospect had experienced the joys of using the magic articles, he would never give them up. The method worked. And soon Plato was richer by fifteen credits, instead of the ten or twelve he had hoped for. He had a few other odds and ends, which he sold for as much as they would bring. After all, once he was out in space, he wouldn't need them any more. IN the middle of the next day, when the bell sounded the end of the class on Planetary Geography and it was time to go to the class on Animal Physiology, Plato picked himself up and walked out. One of the 'copter custodians looked at him suspiciously, but Plato didn't dignify the man by paying him direct attention. He muttered to himself, "Always picking on me. I don't see why he can't send somebody else on his errands." It was better than the forged pass signed with the headmaster's name. The pass itself came in handy when he bought a flight ticket. The ticket agent also stared at him suspiciously, but Plato was ready for him. He had prepared the slip of paper beforehand, tracing the headmaster's name laboriously from one of the lists of regulations attached to the wall. To make pursuit as difficult as possible for any one who tried to trail him, Plato asked for a ticket not to Space Junction, where he was going, but to Venusberg, in the opposite direction. Both tickets cost about the same; the ticket to Venusberg, in fact, cost three decicredits more. Once on the plane-drawn glider, he could explain to the conductor that the agent had made a mistake and offer the ticket he had. Since the company would lose nothing by the transaction, there was no reason why the conductor should object. Plato was proud of this bit of trickery, and he flattered himself that by means of it he had entirely thrown off pursuit. It must be remembered that he was only ten years old. On the glider-flight, he found himself sitting next to a middle-aged woman who wore glasses and was surrounded by packages. She beamed at him, as she did at every one else around her, and Plato shrank back into his seat. If there was anything he didn't want on this trip, it was to be mothered. But he couldn't escape her. She said, "My, my, you're awfully young to be traveling alone. This the first time?" "Yes, ma'am," said Plato nervously, afraid of the embarrassing questions he could read on her face. Hastily he stared out over the side and gasped, "Gee, how small everything is!" Imagine anyone who had traveled vicariously through space with Comets Carter being awed by a flight in a plane drawn glider! But the ruse worked. She said, "Yes, it is frightening, isn't it? Even worse than space travel." "You've been in space, ma'am?" "Bless your heart, I've been in space more times than you could shake a stick at. The takeoff isn't so nice, I'll admit, but after that you're just sailing free. What are you going to be when you grow up?" They had his future all planned for him, but he knew that he wasn't going to be any of the things they wanted him to be. He said boldly, "A space explorer." She laughed. "You youngsters are all alike inside, no matter how different you seem. My boy was the same way when he was young. But he got over it. A space explorer, no less!" PLATO didn't answer. It was only a half hour's trip, and the conductor was walking down the aisle. Plato found it difficult to take his eyes off him. He was afraid that the man would take a look at his ticket, say, "Wrong plane, son," and turn him over to the stationmaster at Space Junction, to be shipped back. In his nervousness, Plato had difficulty getting his ticket out of his pocket. As he had expected, the conductor said, "You're on the wrong flight." The motherly woman exclaimed, "Oh, isn't that a shame! Are they waiting for you in Venusberg?" Plato said tearfully, "Yes, ma'am." The tearfulness wasn't hard to manage; he'd learned the trick at school. "That's too bad. How are you going to get there?" "I don't know. I had just enough money to pay for this ticket." "Doesn't the company correct mistakes, Conductor?" "Not mistakes the passengers make," said the conductor sourly. "I'm sorry, boy, I'll have to take that ticket." The woman's eyes flashed and, as the conductor moved on, she said, "The nasty thing. They have no consideration at all. Look, child." For a moment Plato thought she was going to offer him flight fare from Space Junction to Venusberg, but she was not, he discovered, as motherly as that. "You know what you'll do when you get off? Send a 'gram, collect, to your people in Venusberg. They'll wire you your fare. And you'll reach them in a couple of hours." "Thank you, ma'am," he said, not feeling thankful at all. So it was all right to be sympathetic, he thought indignantly, up to the point where sympathy might cost her money. Like most people, she was free-handed only with advice. Who wanted advice? AT Space Junction he waved her a shy farewell, and then turned and disappeared into the station crowd. At the takeoff grounds, his heart sank. As he might have expected, the entrance to the space tarmac was well guarded. How was he going to become a stowaway on a spaceship if he couldn't even get close to it? He wandered around outside, staring through the charged wire fence at the crowds, the spacemen, the ships inside. They were gigantic shining things, those wonderful ships, each so long that he realized for the first time how far away they must have been and how rapidly they must have traveled, for those he saw had seemed to him like shooting stars. They were pointed almost straight up. Near the stern of each ship was a vacuum-pit to absorb the radioactive exhaust gases. His eye caught an old tub, its shininess dulled, its hull faintly scarred. Just such a ship, he thought with a thrill, as the one on which Comets Carter had been shanghaied on that momentous occasion when ... The old freighter swung a great circle, its torsion jets blasting desperately in an effort to keep it on an even keel. This, thought Comets Carter, was it. This was the foul revenge that Rogue Rogan had planned, the evil death he had plotted with his unhuman companions. In a moment the pulsating radiations of electroid rays would set off the cargo of ghoulite, and when the interplanetary echoes of the explosion died away, Comets Carter would be no more than a series of photon packets, his body torn apart, his very atoms converted into radiation that was hurtling with the speed of light to the far corners of the universe … It hadn't happened that way, of course. But if it had happened —well, it might have on just such a tub as this. A guard saw him peering through the fence, and said, "What are you looking at, kid?" "Those ships," said Plato, honestly enough. And then he added, to throw the man off the track, "Gee, I'd be scared to go up in one of them. No, sir, you couldn't get me into one of them for a million credits." The man laughed. "They're not for the likes of you. A lot of those ships go to other stars." "Other stars? Gosh! Does that little one, the Marie T.—" "That tub? Just an interplanetary freighter. But even that isn't for you. Now run along and mind your own business." Plato was happy to run along. Unfortunately, he realized, running along didn't help him to get past the fence. And then he had a fear-inspiring thought. He couldn't tell an interplanetary ship from an interstellar. What if he did manage, somehow, to get in and stow away—and then, found himself on a ship bound for no more distant port than Earth, from which he could easily be sent home in disgrace? It sent a shiver through him. Fortunately, it also stimulated his mind. After all, there were such things as newspapers, and the school, nuisance in many ways though it was, had taught him to read. HE bought a paper and turned at once to the shipping news section. As he had hoped, every ship was listed. He checked off some of the names he had glimpsed on the field, and found happily that their destinations were printed in the most routine manner. There still remained the question of how to get past the guards. This, he suddenly realized, was a question impossible to solve on an empty stomach. It had been many hours since he had eaten lunch. There were a dozen restaurants in the spaceport, and he selected one carefully, studying the illuminated menus and the prices before daring to enter. If that motherly old woman had been as kind-hearted as she pretended to be, he wouldn't have had to worry so much about prices. As it was, he knew that he had money enough for only two days, and after that—his stomach could complain all it wanted to, it would have to go unfed. He chose from the menu only items that he never tasted at school—dishes made from real plant and animal life, with just enough synthetics to give them flavor. He couldn't say that he liked what he ate, but at least it gave him the feeling of being on his own, of having made the break with his tame past as complete as possible. Earth-beef tasted too strong; Venus seaweed stew had a pungency that he didn't like. He finished his plate only because he had been taught that to leave food over was wasteful. And for the first time he began to wonder what they would feed him on the spaceship. Suppose he got on one that wasn't scheduled to make port for five years—and all he received to eat was stuff like this? The thought made him shudder. Here was a hardship of space travel that the books he read had never mentioned. After eating, he slumped back in his chair. He hadn't realized he was so completely exhausted until a hand shook his shoulder. Then he awoke with a start. A waiter said, "This is no place to sleep, youngster." "I'm sorry, sir. I was tired and I didn't realize." "You been here for a long time. Waiting for someone?" "Yes, sir. Something must have held him up." "Seems to me that I noticed you walk in here about three hours ago. That's a 'wig time to wait." "That's what I thought, sir. I can't understand what happened." "Well, you can't hang around here. I'll tell you what I'll do, though. I'll turn you over to the matron in our Lost and Found room, and she'll look out for you. Follow me." IN a daze, Plato followed. But as his feet were set into motion, so was his brain. By now, of course, the search for him must be well on. They must have traced him to the station, and perhaps, despite his clever trick with the ticket, they had found the flight he had taken. For all he knew, they might be waiting for him in the Lost and Found room, ready to seize him the moment he showed his face there. He hadn't gone so far to be recaptured so easily. As they passed an exit door, Plato darted out. He heard the waiter's surprised shout, but he didn't wait to reply. In a second, he had lost himself in the crowd. He knew now that if he was going to get aboard an interstellar vessel, he would have to do so soon. What would Comets Carter have done in Plato's place —if Comets had been in one of his brighter moods? And then he had it. He saw a messenger coming down the street, gleaming in his uniform, and, somewhat nervously, approached him. "May I speak to you?" asked Plato, with school-taught politeness. "What about, bud? I'm busy." "Well, I've been wanting to get Captain Halverson's autograph. He's on the Space Symphony—" "So what?" "Well, the thing is, they won't let me past the gate. So I thought that if I wore a messenger's uniform—" The other boy glared at him. "Are you off your Norbert? I wouldn't let you wear this uniform for a zillion credits." Plato swallowed nervously, and said in desperation, "I don't have a zillion credits, but I've got eight, and I'll give them to you if you let me wear it. Just half an hour, that's all it'll take. It's the last chance I'll have to ask him. He's bound for Rigel, and he won't be back for five years, and you see—" His voice tapered to a thin, tearful squeak as the messenger looked at him. "You're offering me eight space-lousy credits?" "It's all I have. We'll just change clothes for a few minutes, and that'll be all. Please, I've got to see him. I know that if I do, he'll give me his autograph." "Okay," said the messenger unexpectedly. "But hurry back. I'll be at the gate waiting for you." AS they exchanged clothes, Plato was almost feverish with excitement. But he knew that if he expected to get past the guard, he would have to control himself. The clothes didn't fit too well, even though the messenger was small, and he must do nothing that would arouse the guard's suspicion. He said to the messenger, "Gee, thanks. You don't know how much this means to me." And then, with a mental grip on himself so tense that it hurt physically, he approached the guard, and said casually, "Earth 'gram for Captain Halverson." The guard hardly looked at him. He was past the gate! He had been tricky again. Once out of sight of the guard, he made not for the Space Symphony, but for the Long Ranger, bound for Aldebaran. "Earth 'gram for Captain Brinjar," he muttered, doing his best to look bored, as if delivering 'grams to ships was an old thing to him. And then he was aboard! It was not quite what he expected. The smooth walls were such as he might have found in his own dormitory. The quarters, he saw, were cramped, although for someone his size they were at least adequate. And the passageways, although brilliantly lighted, were mere narrow tunnel. From the main passageway, other tunnels branched off bewilderingly, and Plato hesitated until he realized that his very confusion gave him an excuse for poking his nose into all sorts of places. He followed one of the tunnels until he came to a door: ENGINE ROOM—KEEP OUT. He entered. A mechanic looked up. "Earth 'gram for Captain Brinjar. They said he was around here." "Not here," replied the mechanic. "Try the cargo hold." Plato backed out and set off down the corridor again, noting the direction arrows and signs. TO MAIN LOUNGE—no good. TO CAPTAIN'S CABIN — worse. He didn't want to find the captain and lose his excuse for being there. And then he saw TO FOOD STORAGE and knew that he need look no further. This was a place both to hide and to eat, until the ship took off, and the crew found him, and had to accept him as one of themselves. He opened the door to the food storage hold with an elaborate caution that turned out to be unnecessary. There was no one inside. He settled down between two packing cases and let out his breath. He had made it. He had stowed away successfully, and in a few hours he would be out in space, traveling between the stars; fighting, adventuring A yawn almost wiped the smile off his face. HE awoke to disaster. The captain and Plato's dorm master were standing there, staring down at him, and the dorm master was saying, "All right, Plato, you've had your adventure, and now I'm afraid you'll have to pay for it. It's time to go home." Plato couldn't move. It was impossible, after he had been so clever, so ingenious, and had thrown them off the trail in so many ways, for them to have found him! "You shouldn't have bought a ticket to the wrong station," said the dorm master, somewhat amusedly. "When the conductor turned it in, the only one of its kind on his flight, it naturally attracted attention. We hadn't even suspected you had taken a glider-train until the flight people came to us." Now he would never adventure on strange planets of unknown suns. He would never course through space like Comets Carter. He would never have the adventures which alone made life seem worth living. Unable to control himself, he burst into tears. It was a completely unmanly thing to do, but he couldn't help himself. The tears flowed down over his cheeks, washing away all his shattered illusions. He would never dream such dreams again. From now on, it would be useless. They would be watching him carefully to make sure that he didn't leave the planet. He heard the captain say in astonishment, "I didn't know these young ones could cry like that." "Of course they cry," replied the dorm master. "They eat, sleep, cry—almost like you and me, Captain. And worst of all, they even have their dreams. That's why I sometimes wonder, Captain, if it isn't a mistake to send them to school." "They have to learn." "Granted," agreed the dorm master somberly. "But not to dream of being human when they're only androids." —WILLIAM MORRISON FRANK NEWELL was still excited when he heard the beeping of the radio signal at his belt. He put aside the seeds on which he had been working and threw the switch that brought him Bulkley's voice. The man sounded anxious, amusingly so. You might have thought there was real danger. "Newell! You all right?" Newell tried to keep the excitement out of his own voice. No use betraying his discovery too soon. No sense in giving Bulkley time to start his crafty mind going, to make plans for a double-cross. He said, "I'm fine. How are you? How are all the relatives?" "Don't try to be funny, Newell." That crack about the relatives must have hurt, to judge from the savage anger in the man's tones. It emphasized his isolation, his desperate loneliness. "A minute ago I was feeling sorry for you. Don't make me want to break your neck myself." "No, that would be dangerous, wouldn't it?" "That last fall of trees didn't come close to you?" "I wasn't among the trees. I was in a cleared area." "You've got more sense than I thought." He could detect the relief in the man's voice. "For a while I thought you might have been caught. I thought I might be—" "Can't lose me, Bulkley. It's sweet of you to worry, though. How'd you spare the time from watching that dancer on television?" "Being funny again, Newell? You know that I don't watch television during the day." "Thought you just sat there and stared at the screen, mooning about her." "Newell, if you weren't so important to me—" "Sure, I know how much you think of me. Anyway, my dear friend, I'm alive. Alive and kicking. I'll be back in two hours." And with something to tell you, he added to himself. Something that'll give you the kind of hope you haven't had in a long time. We're no pals, we hate each other's guts, but all the same we're in this for another three months, at least—if we live that long. It's a big if, he thought, as he turned back to the seeds. This beautiful planet, so quiet and peaceful now, is a death trap. It's a planet where danger lies in wait. That's why Bulkley and I have been exiled here. He thought back. How long have we been there together? Why, it's no more than six months in all. Imagine that, only six months! It feels like a lifetime. But six months with Bulkley would be a lifetime anywhere. The man never fooled me, he reflected with gloomy pride. I hated him from the beginning, although not the way I've come to hate him now. That's because I've come to realize what he's done to me. That night when the truth struck me—that's the time I needed self-control. That was the time when the desire to avenge myself, to kill, surged over me, almost overpowered me. But it would have left me alone here, alone on this damned and beautiful planet. So I kept my feelings under control and, after a time, they changed. My hatred for Bulkley is deeper now. But it's become a cold, calculating hatred. Some day I'm going to have my revenge. But not yet. Now we have to work together, protect each other as if there were the greatest bond of affection between us. We need each other too much for either of us to let the other die. BROTHERLY love, he thought. Brotherly love, just like Cain and Abel in the prehistoric story. Newell began to sort his seeds again. He was a big man in shorts, a thin film of moisture covering his deeply bronzed skin. The pinkish sun was hot overhead, and there was no wind at all. Only the creeping plants in the forest crackled from time to time in response to some inner change in their metabolism. When he had finished with his seeds, his hands almost dropping some of them in his excitement, it was late, more than time to return to the plastex hut. He put everything in order for the next day's experiments, and set out for home. The forest was still quiet, but once a slight wind arose, and he had a sensation of danger, and an urge to run. Don't be a fool, he told himself. There's no danger, nothing to run from. He fought down the sense of panic, and forced himself to walk slowly. Outside the plastex hut he forced himself to stop. No use letting Bulkley see how fundamentally excited he was. For a long time they had been without hope of escape, and now that one unexpected door away from death had been opened, Bulkley would be in a fever of anticipation. No use letting the man see the eagerness, the hope which filled Newell himself at the thought of what he had discovered. As he had expected, Bulkley was sitting at the television set, his eyes glued to the screen. A lithe girl, clothed mostly in veils of gauze, twisted and writhed against an exotic purple and gold background. The same girl. This was the kind of educational program Bulkley liked, he told himself with a grim smile. It was a program that specialized in graphic illustration of the anthropology of alien planets, with occasional excursions into the anthropology of the dead past. It combined sex with instruction. A fine program, a fascinating program, a program well calculated to drive a lonely man completely crazy. Almost incidentally, Newell noted the dancer's face. It was half hidden by the swirling gauze, but he could see that it was wistful and appealing. Bulkley had probably not even noticed it, nor had he noted the name of the program chastely displayed on a glowing placard at the right: EXTINCT DANCES OF EARTH. Bulkley was too busy watching those lithe movements, anticipating the throwing off of the next veil. With a feeling of unexpected pleasure, Newell allowed himself to show a small part of the hatred he felt. As the dancing girl whirled with flaring veils, he reached over and turned off the set. The girl faded out. Silence descended on the hut. The rows of transparent metal utensils hanging on the wall, the clothes, transparent and opaque, neatly arrayed in the closets, the store of precious raw plastex powder in the stock room, the tiny atomic power plant at the side—all were silent. Silent and tense, as if waiting for a thunderbolt to strike from the equally silent sky. The thunder clouds were forming. A blank look spread over Bulkley's face. Then, as he realized to the full the deliberateness of the act, he leaped to his feet, his hand dropping to his holster. "I'll get you for that, you lousy space-warped fool!" THE MAN'S rage was destined to be frustrated, and that made it amusing. Newell smiled, and dropped into a seat. "Calm down," he said. "I've got something important to say to you. And you'd be in no condition to appreciate it after watching that program." "I'll watch what I damn please, you mind-twisted—" "Easy, Bulkley, or you'll run out of adjectives. And I get tired of hearing you repeat yourself. You know that you don't watch what you please. You watch what the censors let you. And they'd never permit the girl to strip off the last veil." Bulkley was still cursing, more to himself now than at the other man. Newell stared at him, his own excitement more easily controlled now that he saw what a fool his companion looked like when he was unreasonably excited. And yet, Bulkley was no fool. He was a shrewd, dangerous enemy, and a false and treacherous friend. Physically, he was enormously impressive. Tall, wide-shouldered, with powerful muscles that had been hardened in his work as engineer on numerous planets, he seemed to dwarf even Newell. He was older than Newell, and—yes, Newell had to admit it—shrewder. Bulkley had been around, he knew how things were done. Newell was a good biochem man, with a special affinity for plants. He could almost sense how a plant felt as it grew—and that seemed absurd, because a plant has no feelings. But Bulkley could sense how people felt. He had control, too, a control and a will as strong, when he wanted to use them, as Newell's own. His hot rage was disappearing now, and as it disappeared, a cold and ugly look formed in his eyes. A cold look in the eyes, a cold smile on the hard face. He said evenly, "One of these days, Newell, I'm going to kill you for pulling a little trick like that." "Kill me? You should thank me, Bulkley. All you're building up for yourself by watching programs of that sort is frustration. You haven't a chance in the world—any world—of seeing a girl like her in the flesh for a long time. Why tantalize yourself? It only makes your blood pressure worse. And there are no doctors on this planet to treat it." "You're so kind and thoughtful of my health, Newell, I don't know how to thank you. But I'm going to kill you anyway. I'm warning you now." "You won't kill me yet, though. We're the only two people on this planet. You need me too much." "One of these days you might make me forget that I need you." NEWELL stood up slowly. "I won't tell you my opinion of you, Bulkley," he said. "I'll leave it to you to guess. But I don't want you to think I'm afraid of you. If there were such a thing as a space-devil, I wouldn't be afraid of that either, not if I hated it as much as I hate you. And another thing I don't want you to imagine is that you've fooled me. Because you haven't, not worth a damn. I know why I'm on this planet. It's because you framed me and had me put here." "You're having hallucinations, Newell." "I don't think so. I've been having thoughts. We've been here for about six months now—and I've had time to figure out why I was convicted." "The why is simple enough. You were caught." There was a contemptuous sneer on the bigger man's face. "They had the evidence against you, just as they had against me. Only the big shot who arranged everything got away." "The big shot? There was no big shot. It was you who ran everything, you who manufactured the evidence. It's no use trying to laugh that off, Bulkley, because I know the truth. Millions of credits were disappearing, and you were the one responsible for making them disappear. When they got wise to you, you tried to shift the blame to me. That didn't work—not quite, anyway. You couldn't get out of the net of evidence yourself, although you were able to involve me." "And you were innocent. Too bad." "I was a simple-minded scientist. Before this happened, I had been entirely absorbed in my work. When the accusations against me were first made, I was too bewildered to know what was happening. It probably wouldn't have made any difference if I had known. The evidence I needed had disappeared. The entire Research Bureau where I worked had been cleaned out. The only way I might have been cleared was by the testimony of the people who were your own pals—the secretary of the Bureau, his assistant, and the others." "Imagination, Newell. These people were no pals of mine. Especially after they disappeared, and couldn't be located again." "Could the reason for that be, my friend, that you dipped your hands in a little murder?" Bulkley's face flushed suddenly at the question as a wave of blood swept up from the neckline. But he didn't lose his temper again. He was icy now, icy and more dangerous. "It could be—" he said slowly, "—if that's the kind of imagination you have." "It is." Newell laughed harshly. "You have no idea. Bulkley, how close you were to death the night you confessed." "I confessed?" "You were talking and cursing in your sleep. I guess that the loneliness here was getting you, I heard you through, the walls. I opened the door of your room and listened." "And you didn't say anything in the morning?" "I didn't trust myself to speak to you. That was the morning I got up early and hurried to work before you awoke." Bulkley said slowly, "I remember that you did act strange for a time. I thought that the loneliness was getting you." "Not loneliness. The urge to murder. Yes, Bulkley, it's catching. I think the chief reason I didn't kill you—" "The same reason I let you live. We need each other too much." NEWELL nodded. "To keep our sanity, if for no other reason. They put us together on this planet, out of the way of the great galactic routes, with no hope of returning to civilization. I don't know whether they figured we hated each other or not. At any rate, it was a clever method of punishment to leave us here together." He stared through the clear plastex window. "As pretty a little planet as you'd want to see. Food for the taking, and clear sweet water in every brook. Not an animal in the place, so they didn't leave us weapons. But they were kind to us, so far as kindness can be consistent with the cruelty of punishment. They left us books, a television receiver, a supply of raw material for plastex, and a stock of drugs in case of dangerous virus or bacterial disease. They wanted us to stay alive as long as possible—until one of those little accidents happened." He was silent for a moment, as both he and Bulkley thought of the accident they had recently so narrowly escaped. Long streamers from the pink sun, a violent windstorm, the giant trees snapping and striking out in all directions—death had been very close that night. It would be close again the next time the winds rose, and it would never cease threatening from the earthquakes, the damnable earthquakes that had eventually destroyed every colony that had been started here. Sooner or later, the earthquakes would engulf them. Not yet, however. And possibly, not at all, if his new hopes were justified. Bulkley said, "Is this what you wanted to tell me?" "No. This is merely something I want to get off my chest, so that we can have things straight, and understand each other. The fact is that I've stumbled on something that may be important enough to get us off this planet." He could see the spark of light that sprang into Bulkley's eyes. There was new hope there—new hope, and new danger. "What is it, Newell?" "Before I tell you, I want to know how far you've gone with that equipment you've been working on, from the old buried wreck we found in the forest." The man's eyes became hooded, evasive. "Not very far. The space ship was an obsolete type, and the equipment wasn't of much use." "Then there's no use in my telling you what I found." "What do you mean by that? demanded Bulkley. "We can't get off here unless we can communicate with the nearest space outpost. And if you haven't been able to construct a long-range radio transmitter—" THE EYES shifted, prepared to look candid and truthful. "I haven't been working on it very hard. I might get the thing done if there was a good reason for it." You're lying, thought Newell. Most probably you've got the radio transmitter already made, and you're trying to keep its existence to yourself. Now that you see a chance of getting out of here, you feel that your need for me is less. I know you're a killer, I know that I'm dangerous to you, too dangerous to be allowed to live. Well, I'm not going to tell you much now, old friend. I'm not going to tell you so much that you'll feel you can afford to kill me, and go it alone. He said, "There's a good reason. But I'm keeping it to myself until I see that transmitter." Bulkley stared at him, hatred radiating from the big body. "So after coming in here and turning that show off, and building up my hopes, you've got nothing to tell me." "Nothing, until I see that transmitter. I don't trust you, Bulkley. It's never good policy to trust murderers." The hatred in the room seemed ready to crystallize, to take tangible form. But Bulkley merely said with contempt, "You'll see the transmitter tomorrow. And what you have to say had better be good." "It will be good enough." Newell switched on the television set. An ancient man's withered face sprang into being on the screen, and a droning voice began to fill the air with details of linguistic differences between races of different galaxies. This was educational, and no mistake about it. "Here's your program, Bulkley. Only, this old bird isn't removing any veils." Bulkley reached a heavy hand toward the set, and once more the picture on the screen faded. The hatred in the room continued to hang there, thick and heavy. They ate in silence, and when the meal was over, Newell went into his own room, closed the door, and quietly arranged the booby trap he had prepared. He knew that Bulkley would not try to kill him yet, not until he had learned what the discovery was. But there was nothing to prevent Bulkley from knocking him out, tying him up, and then torturing him in an effort to get the secret. Nothing but his own ingenuity. He slept well, too well. In the middle of the night he was awakened by the hoarse scream of a man in terror. THE BOOBY trap had worked. He flashed on the light. On the floor was a gun and a length of rope. Standing in the doorway was Bulkley, writhing desperately in the grip of long brown arms that hugged his neck with deadly affection, tightened around his body, twisted around his legs. The arms were attached to no body of their own. They hung loose in the air, like the snakes which on this planet did not exist. It was not good to see a man so terrified, even a man like Bulkley, whose intentions were so obviously murderous. Newell felt a little sick at the sight. The arms around the neck twisted tighter, and the screams became hoarser and more strangled. Newell realized that in another minute the man would lose consciousness. He pressed the button of one of his research flashlights. A strong invisible pencil of infrared lanced out at the brown arms. They froze into immobility. He said quietly, "They won't get any tighter, Bulkley. Not unless you start them up again by trying to escape." The other man was deadly still. Not a muscle seemed to move, although he could not keep an artery in his neck from twitching, and his sweat glands were overstimulated by fear. His face glistened in the dim light like the surface of a sheet of water. Newell said with contempt, "I thought you'd try to do that. You probably caught the others asleep too. It's too bad for you that my own ropes were a little more alert than yours." Terror found a voice. Bulkley said hoarsely, "Let me out of these damned things." "No, my friend. I don't trust you out of them. They're one of the native plants I've been working with for the past few months. Ordinarily they're harmless, but I've learned how to control them, and to defend myself with them. And I'm defending myself now." Bulkley stammered, "Let me out. I can't breathe." "That's hardly something for me to worry about. However, I will loosen them a bit. But I don't intend to remove them, Bulkley. From now on, they stay on you, day and night, until you're no longer in a position to harm me. You may be glad to know that they respond to sudden motions, and if you try any more of your tricks, they'll strangle you for good." "I won't try anything. Just let me out!" Newell altered the wave-length emitted in the light pencil, and gave the brown arms a carefully regulated dose of the differently colored infrared. The arms seemed to relax slightly and he heard the long gasping intake of breath from the other man. "That should let you move around more freely. Now, I think, we'd better get some more sleep." The man staggered out toward his own room. Newell lay down on his bed again, and this time he slept till morning. THE PLANET had an approximately twenty-five-hour day, and the nights during the present season were long. When he finally arose, Newell felt rested and pleased with himself. He could hardly say as much for his fellow exile, who was still wearing his animate chains. Newell ate a hearty meal but, naturally enough, Bulkley had no appetite. His throat was sore from the experience of the night, and his voice was hoarse as he pleaded, "Take these things off Me, Newell, and I swear I won't try to kill you, again." Newell laughed without amusement. "Let's not talk nonsense," he said contemptuously. "They're my guarantee against murder." He added, with an air of assurance that Bulkley could not know was false, "Kill me, and you'll never get out. You'll rot with those things around your neck. Now, I'd like to see that radio transmitter." As he had expected, it was in the ruins of the old space ship. Even handicapped as Bulkley was by the brown plant arms around his neck, it took the man only a few minutes to fit the parts together. Newell stared at the array of tubes and transistors, at the elute-powered electric generator. "Power plant too weak for twenty-four-hour operation, but strong enough to get through to the nearest space station in bursts. Very good. You're not a bad engineer, Bulkley. A little untrustworthy, with homicidal tendencies, but highly skilled." The man said nothing. But he thought, and the nature of his thoughts was obvious. Newell hesitated. It seemed foolish to go ahead with keeping a promise to a man who had tried to kill him, but Newell had always kept his word before, and he did not intend to break it now. "All right, Bulkley," he said at last. "Now I'm going to keep my part of the bargain. Come with me." Newell led the way to the prairie-like field where he had been working. From the corner of his eye he kept a watch on the other man, as if he didn't quite count on the deadly plants to keep Bulkley up to the proper behavior. He knew, as he didn't want Bulkley to know, that the plants had only a short life, and then in the normal course of events it would be only a day or two more before the man was free of them. The field was bare and looked recently plowed. The normal plant life had been killed off, and the half-acre of brownish-black soil had a stark and naked appearance. Newell stretched out a hand filled with curious objects. "Take a look at these. What do you think they are?" Bulkley caught his breath in surprise. "Teeth! Big, pointed brown and white teeth! There are animals on this planet after all!" He stared around him in an obvious access of terror. The planet had been bad enough before, with its great falls of trees and its earthquakes. Now it seemed to be acquiring new and equally horrible dangers. But Newell said reassuringly, "There are no animals. Now, get back and watch." Newell had a plastic bag full of the brown tooth-like objects, and he slung the bag over his shoulder before he walked through the plowed area. As he strode between the furrows, scattering the seed sparsely to right and left, and reaching into the plastic bag from time to time for another handful, he looked like one of the ancient pre-historic farmers back on the mother planet. FEAR GAVE Way to confusion in Bulkley's baffled face. "What do you expect to grow?" Newell didn't answer. He glanced once at the rapidly rising sun, pink and hot, and then moved on rapidly. He was completing the sowing of the last furrow before he turned to look hack. On the other side of the field, tiny shoots of purple and green were already showing. They pushed up slowly, imperceptibly at times, and then again in sudden spurts, like the minute hands of an ancient timepiece whose mechanism worked jerkily. When the first shoots had reached a height of six inches, the last shoots on. the other side of the field were just beginning to break through. "They're growing fast," said Bulkley, his personal woes momentarily forgotten at the amazing sight. Newell had rejoined him. "I've learned how to accelerate growth." "Where'd you get the chemicals you needed?" "From the other plants. I made extracts. A chemist would have a field day with the variety of different compounds these plants contain. Alkaloids of entirely new types, indole-aliphatic acids, everything. I've been able to extract fairly pure mixtures that will stimulate the kind of growth I want, help twist the plant in the direction I want it to take." "Then those brown and white things were not teeth, but seeds." "Yes. Their natural color is white. The treatment I gave them turned them partly brown. But watch." Some of the plants were almost two feet in height. So far they had grown straight up, apparently without putting forth shoots or branches of any kind. Now there began to grow what seemed like the beginnings of branches. On the top, a small brown swelling began to form. Slowly the branches developed, one on each side, slowly the brown swellings grew. As the men watched, the shoots divided at the bottom. The growing plants began to look like caricatures of human beings, fantastic scarecrows that arose from the incredibly nourishing soil. When they had reached four feet in height, the plants were more human than ever, uncannily so. The purple had, disappeared, and now they looked like brown men, their faces and bodies streaked with white. Bulkley was silent, his eyes filled with wonder and a new fear. There was something else, too. Newell thought he could detect the beginnings of crafty calculations. Still the plants continued to grow, both in height and in width. And as they grew, they became more human. Newell gazed with awe at the thing that he himself had wrought. Science it was, the mere application of simple and easily understood principles—the use of plant hormones, light, heat, and other simple agents which he had not troubled to explain to Bulkley—and yet the results struck him as a miracle. The crop he had sown filled the expanse of field before him. Brown and white manlike things writhed and grimaced as the stimulating rays of the hot sun reached them. Rows and rows of them, at least two thousand in number, an aura of power, of energy barely held in leash, surrounded them. They began to twist from side to side, as if in anger at the roots that still held them to the ground, as if trying to escape and wreak vengeance on some enemy yet unknown. Newell was reminded of the ancient legend of Cadmus, who had planted dragon's teeth and seen the teeth grow into an army of soldiers, whom a trivial incident had provoked into deadly combat. But nothing would set these soldiers off, he thought. His control of them was too good. The pencil of Newell's flash beam widened into a conical ray, swept over the field. Where it struck, one brown manlike thing after another froze into a posture of tortured strength, of motion held temporarily in check by a force that could not last. The field seemed to overflow with a great uneasy quiet. And then the quiet was shattered, the sun in the sky blazed like a nova and blotted out the strange sight. Newell dropped to the ground, while behind him there came from Bulkley a harsh laugh of triumph. WHEN HE awoke, it was dark. He was lying on his own bed, unbound. He had no idea of how much time had passed, of how long he had lain unconscious. But his head throbbed painfully, and through it there passed a series of harsh noises, of shrieks and cries that grated on his nerves. As he lifted himself to a sitting position, the noises began to make sense. He realized that they were the sounds from a television program to which Bulkley was listening. They were weird, shrill, piercing. Exotic music, he told himself. Music to accompany a dance such as that he had turned off—how long before? The program was repeated every two days. That meant that he had lain unconscious for at least a day and a half. He wondered what Bulkley had learned in that time. More, he knew, than was safe. Enough, he feared, to do tremendous harm. Newell forced himself to his feet and staggered to the door. As he pulled it open, a pair of brown and white hands gripped him, one from each side. Bulkley, at the television set, grunted, "Time you woke up." Through still dazed eyes, Newell stared at the creatures holding him, the creatures which he himself had changed from plants into the semblances of men. Bulkley said quietly, "You made a bad mistake, Newell. Those ropes you had on me were slackening just enough to let me get at them. First I slashed the ones around my neck with a knife, and then I was able to get at the others—and at you." "And now you control these creatures." It was not a question, but a flat statement of fact—of sickening fact. "Thanks to a couple of notebooks of yours. You gave me credit before for being a good engineer, Newell. I give you credit now for being a good biologist. You worked out the details so well that it was a cinch to follow them. And when I found your note books in your room, I knew that I'd be able to do with these creatures as I pleased." As he talked, his eyes remained fastened to the screen. The same dancer whom Newell had turned off on the previous occasion was now performing again, this time almost fully clothed. Now he could catch quick glimpses of her face as she whirled rapidly around, see what genuine charm she possessed. Now he could wonder if Bulkley was quite so irrational in wanting her, in dreaming about her. Bulkley said, "These things were easy to condition. At first I used lights of different wave-lengths, then spoken commands along with the lights. I just followed your notes all along. The things learned faster than dogs or monkeys. It was no trouble at all to get them to respond to spoken commands alone. All I had to do was talk loud, so that they would be sure to catch the sound in their vibration-detecting organs. It's almost as if they had brains." Newell said dully, "They have, in a way. They have central motor control in the upper part of the chest—or in what would be the upper part of the chest in a man." "That explains it. But certain kinds of things they don't learn. I've tried them with heat rays, mechanical shock, chemical poisoning. They react, but they don't learn fear. That means they don't feel. And that's perfect for the things I intend to do with them." THE CREATURES beside Newell made no sound. They were as motionless as the species of plants from which they had descended. But they gave an impression of alertness, of waiting, that was more human than plantlike. "Let me show you some of the things I can get them to do," said Bulkley. He put his fingers to his mouth and whistled shrilly. Two more of the creatures came through the door of the hut. "Take fire," said Bulkley. One of them picked up a fuel lighter with one stubby hand and set the flame to the end of his other arm. The material charred, flickered, and then caught fire. The expression on what passed for a face did not change. "Put out," ordered Bulkley. The flaming arm thrust against the side of the hut and put out the fire. Again the expression on what so horribly resembled a human face remained unaltered. "That'll give you an idea. They'll do anything they're conditioned to do —and I know how to condition them. I haven't given them very complicated commands as yet, but they're learning fast. And there are two thousand of them." "They're dangerous, Bulkley." Newell's head was clearing, and he was beginning to realize what the other man intended. "They may burn their arms as ordered, but you're really the one who's playing with fire." "I'll take my chances of their turning on me. I've got them under control. And I've got you there too." The dance came to an end, and he switched off the set. "I've got a little business to attend to, Newell. A million or so miles off this planet." He noticed Newell's surprise, and grinned evilly. "I can't get as far, yet, as the next planet. But that wrecked ship had better parts than I let you know. It even had several lifeboats, almost intact. I've taken parts of those boats and built myself a low-powered one-man jet job that'll help me get more supplies. If a few hours from now you shift that screen from the entertainment channels to some of the automatic space scanners, you'll be able to see what I do. I think that what happens will keep you entertained. But don't try to get away." The door closed behind Bulkley and two of the creatures. The other two, their handlike appendages on Newell's own arms, relaxed their grip, but remained at his side. Newell took a deep breath, and tried to think. He knew better than to believe he was free. A dog could be trained in a few weeks, was trained in the old days, to be an effective canine soldier, to watch with a fierce vigilance every move you made, to tear you apart if you tried to pull a gun or other object recognizable as a weapon. These plant-creatures learned faster than dogs, were more dangerous. He himself, during his first experiments, had been thrilled to see how rapidly they could be conditioned, with what incredible speed they could go through the motions of learning. Of their physical strength he had only a rough idea. Flexible plant fibers could be as tough as animal muscles, but that was not where the chief danger lay. What set them apart, what made them horrible beyond the ancient breeds of great cats and feral dogs, and the six-legged harpies of such planets as Venus IV, or any of the other fierce beasts at which primitive humans had once shuddered, was the fact of their insensitivity to feeling. Neither happiness nor pain affected them. They were plant robots who, if once started on their course, let nothing stand in their way. You had to destroy them completely in order to stop them. No, Bulkley was not being careless as he himself had been. It made Newell sick to recall exactly how careless he had been. He had forgotten that the plants which held the man captive weakened and relaxed their grip under the direct rays of the sun. In his excitement at seeing the army of growing creatures, he had behaved like a fool. HE SWITCHED on the set, the two plant-creatures watching without any motion of their own. The light receptors which were scattered over the entire upper halves of their bodies were so small as to be invisible to the naked eye. But not the slightest move, he knew, would escape them. A dim picture appeared on the scene, a voice came soothingly from the speaker. "Do you have difficulty falling asleep? Do you suffer unnecessarily from insomnia? Do your troubles keep you awake? Then tune in our special program with Dr. Hypno! Dr. Hypno's soothing personality will put you to sleep without difficulty over millions of miles of space. Dr. Hypno's healing balm for the soul will act as the salve for your wounded psyche. "Dr. Hypno is brought to you as a good-will service by Psychiatric Associates, Inc., makers of psychic articles of all kinds. In just a moment, Psychiatric Associates, Inc., will bring you the details of a wonderful offer by which you can obtain absolutely free some of the most remarkable inventions—" He leaned forward to turn the thing off, when suddenly, responding to something in his behavior that must have set off an alarm mechanism, the two creatures seized him and held him firm. He was helpless, unable to move forward or back. The eyes of Dr. Hypno widened, became enormous, began to glow. A camera trick, he thought dully. But he could not turn his own eyes away. Nor could he close his ears when a soothing voice began, "You are falling asleep, you are falling—asleep." He slept. Strangely enough, he felt refreshed when he awoke. A post-hypnotic suggestion by Dr. Hypno, he thought. He had his freedom to move once more. Carefully, for fear of alarming the too-alert creatures, he leaned forward and switched off the set. The space scanners, he knew, were scattered along the main passenger and freighter routes. They were like the ancient buoys on the oceans of water-rich planets, informing sea-faring vessels of their positions. But unlike the buoys, these scanners had automatic television cameras attached. In case a vessel met with some disaster and its own sending set were destroyed, some scanner or other was sure to pick up its position and guide a protest ship to the rescue. On the screen, a tiny silvery figure swam into view. Slowly it grew larger, became a giant shape which blotted out more and more of the background of stars. It was a freighter, speeding in a trajectory which at its closest point would bring the ship to within two million miles-of his own planet. From out of the blackness, a tiny gnat appeared and raced after the freighter. From a gleaming point, the gnat grew, took on definite form. It was a low-powered atomic jet ship, of the most primitive design, resembling the one-man jets of the pre-spaceflight era. Speed was high, but the jet was so small that the oxygen store, despite the regenerators, could hardly suffice for more than a few million miles. He could see vaguely the figure of the man inside. That was Bulkley, so intent on pursuit. That was the murderer, going about new murders. A flash of light appeared at the muzzle of one of the weapons of the jet and, almost simultaneously, the side of the freighter burst open like a great eggshell. In the heatless vacuum of interstellar space there was no sound. But the great flash of radiation was as terrifying as any roar would have been. The entire screen shone with fierce radiance and then blanked out. The sending scanner had been put out of commission. HE TURNED off the set altogether, his heart sick, his body tense with excitement. A few hours from now, what remained of the freighter would crash on the surface of the planet. Until then he had time to think. He had time to find a way out of the horrible mess into which his own blundering had brought him. He stared once more at the two plant-creatures that were guarding him. Strange, he thought, that they don't look absolutely alike. The arrangement of white streaks on the brown surface is different in each case. They have different individualities. The one on my right looks tough, hard-boiled, but the other one seems to have a kinder expression. They deserve names. Think I'll christen them Tough-Egg and Kind-Mugg. Then he laughed at himself. I'm trying to read their expressions as if those were human faces, he told himself, I'm ascribing human emotions to them. They're not human, they're plants. They have no feelings, one way or the other. No feelings at all. They can be used for any purpose Bulkley wants to use them. Committing more murders, for instance. I'll have to stop him, somehow, figure out a way. They're conditioned to taking orders from him, but I'll have to recondition them. Let me see, now, they're affected primarily by chemical changes, and by light. Sounds as such mean little to them. They get the mechanical vibrations, but conditioning to words comes after strong conditioning to different lights. If I had my flashlights— Trouble is, there aren't any flashlights. There are no sources of adjustable light or heat within the room. Bulkley has been thoughtful enough to remove them. Still, Bulkley can't think of everything. Maybe he made a mistake, as I did. Maybe—ah, the television set. He moved cautiously, slowly, so that the creatures would not be stimulated by any sudden motion to pounce upon him. He switched on the set again, then turned it around, opened the back, and stared inside. No glowing tubes here. But I can feel a slight warmth when I put my hand close. And those plant-things are thermotropic, they respond to heat radiations. He turned the set so that the faint heat was directed at Tough-Egg. The plant-creature moved forward hesitated—then moved forward again. Responds to stimulus, thought Newell, but it's a weak stimulus, and a weak response. Can't recondition him—it—that way. But it's a start. And maybe Kind-Mugg will respond more strongly. Kind-Mugg didn't respond at all. Newell muttered to himself in disappointment. Have to try something else, he realized. Have to keep on trying. Maybe, by the time Bulkley gets back, I'll have hit on something good. The hours passed in almost futile experiments. By the time he heard the rockets o; the torn freighter, decelerating what was left of the ship for a landing, he had learned little. But the two creatures left to guard him had become almost like old friends. No doubt about it, they had distinct individualities. No feelings, though. No more feelings than two pieces of furniture. THE DOOR opened. Bulkley stepped in and grinned at him. "Still here, I see, Newell." "I saw what you did to that freighter." "Neat job, wasn't it? I needed supplies I couldn't get off that wrecked ship on this planet. And when I tuned in on shipping news, I heard that this freighter would be coming along with some of the objects I needed." "You won't get away with it for long, Bulkley. You caught them by surprise because they never expected pirates in this part of space. But the patrol guards have the news by now. They'll be sending a well-armed patrol ship along in a day or so. And you'll be helpless against them." "Not helpless, Newell. I know exactly how I'm going to handle any patrol ship that shows up. In fact, I'm looking forward to it. The more ships they send, the more supplies I'll have." The hatred in the man twisted his face into a horrible smile. Newell felt, hatred of his own well up inside him at the thought of what the man intended to do. Bulkley could see how he felt. "Don't like the idea, do you, Newell? Don't like the idea of all those patrol guards being cut down like the worthless space-lice they are? Too bad. Because you're going to help me. That's why I'm letting you stay alive, Newell. You're going to be very useful to me. And you're going to start off by getting me some more of those dragon-tooth seeds." Newell's teeth clamped together. He shook his head. Bulkley smiled grimly. "You'll change your mind, Newell. This is too important for me to let you be stubborn about it. Do you realize what I can do with these creatures?" "I realize. That's why I won't help you." Bulkley seemed not to have heard-him. "The perfect robots," he said, as if to himself. "Trained to do anything I want them to, anything at all. No feelings, no fears. And they're cheaper than any other kind of robot. No expensive machinery to make, no sponge-colloid brain that can go out of order. The kind for which people like me have been looking for a long time. "They're not only perfect servants, Newell. They're soldiers. What was the old word for them—cannon fodder? That's what they are. They don't know what it is to live, so they don't mind dying. No indoctrination needed, no nonsense about how terrible the enemy is. Just train them to obey, and they kill for you and get themselves killed." THE MAN had delusions of grandeur, thought Newell. He wasn't crazy—far from it. In some ways he was only too sane. But hatred consumed him, and on this lonely planet his hatred had been too greatly bottled up. Now it had its chance to come out. And when it came, it would bring death and destruction in its wake. "So you see, my friend, why I want more of those dragon teeth." "They're not easy to prepare," said Newell slowly. He was beginning to get the glimmering of an idea that might keep him safe for a while. Bulkley needed him. Why not pretend to go along with what Bulkley wanted, pretend he wouldn't dare disobey—and at the same time put a spoke in the man's plans? "They grow fast once you put them in the ground," he went on, "but before that, they need a good deal of treatment. That takes time." "Then get started. These two creatures will watch you and serve as your assistants. Maybe, if the process isn't too complicated, they'll learn how to prepare the seeds themselves. That would be nice, wouldn't it, Newell? The cannon fodder themselves preparing more cannon fodder." He laughed, and suddenly, without warning, changed the subject. "By the way, Newell, we have guests on our beautiful planet. Not the kind of guests I'd have chosen, but they'll do to relieve the loneliness." The crew, thought Newell. Some of the crew were still alive. Bulkley flashed a light signal through the window. The door opened, and a man and a woman, guarded by two of the plant-creatures, stumbled over the threshold. "Mr. Hilton," said Bulkley. The man peered at them from behind thin transparent metal lenses, the high retractive index making his eyes seem enormous. His face was old, lined, worried. He was a hundred and twenty if a day, thought Newell. "And this is Miss Indra Hilton, his daughter." The girl stared at him dully through her own glasses, the shock of what had happened during the past few hours still visible on her face. An atomic blast that tore out the side of the freighter was not an easy thing to take, thought Newell. Still, those glasses, and those clothes— She'd have been pretty, he told himself, in the right clothes. But perhaps it was just as well, for her sake, that she wasn't pretty. She wore an octagonal hat, as well as octagonal glasses—as weird a combination as a girl could be expected to think up. She looked schoolteacherish in the worst sense of the word. Her clothes were awkward, loose-fitting, the kind some women seemed to choose almost automatically in an effort to conceal any good points they might have. But she wasn't old. No clothes could make so young a girl seem old. She wasn't past her early twenties. "This, my honored guests," said Bulkley, "is my very talented colleague, Mr. Newell. Mr. Newell invented those plant creatures who are now guarding you. But he doesn't like what I'm doing with them, so that he is a prisoner just as much as you are." Newell found his voice. "What happened to the crew?" "The members of the crew were unfortunately killed in the—the accident, shall we call it?—that incapacitated the freighter. Mr. Hilton brought the ship down to earth with the mechanical landing equipment, setting the controls according to instructions I radioed to him. Mr. Hilton is very good at following instructions." "I am an educator," said Hilton sonorously. "Yes, Gentlemen, I instruct the young in the best knowledge of the past. It is a noble profession, and it trains the mind in proper habits of thought." His voice didn't sound old. It was strong and resonant, and Newell thought it seemed faintly familiar. He wondered whether at any time in the past the man had taught at a school that he had attended. Greater Procyon IV University, for instance, where he had taken special courses in chemobotany, had thousands of teachers, and most of them he knew only by sight, if at all. "Miss Hilton also teaches school," said Bulkley. He grinned again. "It seems to me that she could stand learning a few things herself. I'll be glad to teach them to her." THERE WAS a tense silence in the room. In Newell the feeling of hatred suddenly welled up almost to the point of bursting. He felt a choking sensation in his throat, and in his muscles an almost intolerable urge to leap forward and smash Bulkley's evilly grinning face. Perhaps, though, that was exactly what the man wanted. Perhaps that was what he counted on, knowing that if any move were made against him, his planet robots would immediately spring to his defense. Only the old man seemed undisturbed by the threat. He took off his metal lenses and began to polish them. "It is always good to add to one's knowledge," he announced sonorously. The old boy is senile thought Newell. He doesn't understand a thing. But the look of dignity on the old face gave him pause. "Maybe he's just a little slow on the uptake," thought Newell. "Or maybe he's putting on an act." The old man held up the lenses, stared through them. "Now his face, as well as his voice, seems familiar," thought Newell. "Where in space have I seen him?" Bulkley waited, as if disappointed that no outburst had occurred. He grunted, "I think that Miss Hilton is disappointed in me. I've really neglected her. Perhaps she doesn't realize the effect that traveling in almost gravity-less space has on a man. It leaves one unable to think for a time of the more pleasant things in life. But you needn't worry about me, Miss Hilton. I'm very glad you're here, even if you don't exactly resemble some of the performers on interspatial television." Something clicked in Newell's mind. He knew now where he had seen the old man before. Bulkley said, "I'm going to see what I can do with some of those supplies on the freighter. Meanwhile, Newell, make our guests at home. And don't try to escape, any of you. These plant creatures are too alert. And they can't be bought, bribed, or won over in any manner whatever." He went out, leaving them together. Newell said politely, "I've seen you before, Mr. Hilton. On television. You're no school teacher. You're Dr. Hypno." "Yes, my dear sir, I am Dr. Hypno." "I had trouble recognizing you. Even now your face doesn't look quite the same—but the special cameras will account for that." The man nodded. "I am, however actually an educator, a school teacher, as you so crudely put it. I had dabbled for many years in hypnosis as a cultural activity, and when this firm, Psychiatric Associates, Inc., needed some one of ability, I was recommended to them." "Can you hypnotize Bulkley?" "Not, I fear, under present conditions, against his will. Not without special equipment." "Perhaps that can be obtained." He turned to face the girl. "Any special talents of your own, Miss Hilton, that we could use against Bulkley?" For some unaccountable reason, the girl flushed. "I am a school teacher too," she said. "My father and I had decided to splurge on a vacation together. Freighter rates are lower than regular passenger rates, of course, because freighters lack certain conveniences. That is why we were so unfortunate as to fall into your partner's hands." "Don't call Bulkley my partner." The girl's eyebrows went up in a manner that was strangely out of place for a school teacher. "He told us he was." "He's a liar." "He said that the two of you were in on a job together before you were caught." NEWELL said grimly, "Bulkley is developing a sense of humor. What actually happened is that he framed me in order to shift the blame from himself. His plan worked only partially, and we were both convicted." "Then this planet is a penal colony?" "A substitute for one. In the old days, when crime was supposed to be common, I understand that the government maintained numerous penal colonies for convicted criminals, with psychiatrists to recondition the more promising colonies. But the last regular colony had been abandoned fifty years ago, and they didn't know what to do with us until some one hit on the idea of exiling us here. We were given all the supplies we could need, except those that would help us escape from the planet. And we began to have hope even before that when we discovered a space ship that had been wrecked a long time before, and still had useful equipment." The old man was staring around the plastex room. "Primitive, but apparently comfortable," he commented. His eyes fell on the brown and white creatures who were guarding them. "Those, sir, I take it, are to be our permanent custodians. They appear to have distinct personalities." "They look different," agreed Newell. "I'm hoping that I'll be able to work on them." His eyes came back to the girl. There was something about her that baffled him. Why had she turned red when he asked her whether she had special talents? And why was he so irritated by those unbecoming octagonal glasses, that silly hat, those stupidly ugly clothes? He reached over, and with an abrupt motion lifted the glasses from her face. The transformation was striking. In the fraction of a second, she had become beautiful. With no lenses to distort or conceal their expression, her eyes blazed. She sprang at him, and her hand stung his face. The two plant-guards, their light receptors responding to the sudden motion, wavered between him and the girl, their bodies quivering like trees in a storm of emotion. They had been conditioned to react to certain kinds of danger. But in a situation of this sort they did not know what to do. NEWELL'S hand went to his face. "You have a powerful swing," he said ruefully. "Isn't that unusual in a dancer?" "So you know who I am!" "Yes. Those glasses and those clothes were an effective disguise, but after a time your face did begin to seem annoyingly familiar. You did those exotic dances of Earth. Perhaps I'd have realized sooner if I had stopped to think that they were on film, just as your father's hypnotic tricks were. Somehow, however, I took it for granted that you were dancing in the studio." "No, those dances were all recorded. I did them when I was working for my degree in Galactic Anthrapology." "What in space ever gave you the idea of wearing such clothes?" "It was annoying to have people recognize me and turn to stare at me everywhere I went. It interfered with my getting new material." "Maybe you don't know it, but Bulkley is a special fan of yours. He's been wanting to meet you for a long time." "When I meet people like Bulkley, I always wear my glasses." She took them out of his hands and returned them to her face. He was amazed to see how completely they transformed her features back again. Now she was once more the dowdy woman of a few moments ago. "At any rate," he said, "now I know what those special talents of yours are." This time her expression was smooth, inscrutable. "You don't know the half of it," she said softly. "I have a surprise in store for your friend Bulkley." Footsteps sounded outside. The door swung open, and Bulkley grinned at them. "Talking about me, I imagine," he growled. "Nothing good, of course," said Newell. "I'll take care of you later, Newell. Meanwhile, we'd better get to work. I expect a visit from a patrol ship, and I want to be ready for it. You'll start at once to prepare those dragon-tooth seeds. I want them in a hurry. As for our guests, they'd better start building themselves a plastex hut. Unless, that is, Miss Hilton wants to move in with me." "No, thank you." she said contemptuously. "You don't realize how you're being honored. But if you won't accept, you don't have to—now." The old man was staring at him. Bulkley turned to him in some annoyance. "What in the galaxy are you looking at?" "You, sir. I am attempting to estimate your intellectual and emotional strength." He was trying to decide, realized Newell, whether Bulkley would be easy or difficult to hypnotize. It was a crucial question. For a time there was silence, as if all knew that they were weighing their future in the balance. BULKLEY uttered an uneasy laugh. "You'll find that my strength is enough to keep you here. Just don't try any funny business." "Of course not. As prisoner to captor, may I offer a suggestion, sir?" "I don't want you to offer anything." The old man nodded, as if pleased at the answer. "As I expected." "What are you so happy about?" "To find you so suggestible. If you will forgive an old pedagogue the weakness of indulging in his favorite vice of lecturing, I must impart this fact to you. There are two sorts of men who are extremely open to suggestion. The first kind adopts everything that is proposed to him." "You'll find out that I'm not like that," said Bulkley. "I have already done so, sir. You go to the opposite extreme. You reject everything—because you realize your own weakness. You put up artificial barriers to keep from doing as other people propose. You don't trust your own power of judgment to decide on what is good or bad. That means that once the barrier is crossed or broken, you will be at the mercy of the person who has broken it." Newell found himself wondering. The old man was pompous in manner, vain of his ability, but he had the shrewdness of the centenarian. And now, he might be right about Bulkley. Beneath the man's harsh brutality there might be a great lack of self-confidence. On the other hand, the whole thing might be simply a lot of psychological double-talk, intended to break down Bulkley's powers of resistance. Whatever it was, Bulkley didn't like it. He snarled, "I don't know what you're talking about. But I do know that you're of no use around here, and it wouldn't take me much to get rid of you altogether. Now get out, and start working on a plastex hut for yourself." He gestured to the side. "You'll find a foam gun in that closet." Newell left the room, the two walking plants keeping close beside him. There were possibilities, he thought, in the old man. He was testing Bulkley, probing for weak spots in the man's psychological make-up, without Bulkley's being aware of it. Unaided, he might not be able to hypnotize the murderer against his will, but with the proper apparatus, there were distinct possibilities of success. And now that Bulkley had to rely on them to prepare for the visit of the patrol ship, they might be able to make something that would be effective. But Bulkley, they soon found, was not so stupid as to let any of his three captives lay hands on dangerous equipment. Newell tried to stall in various ways—he found a sudden need for chemicals or ultra flashlights at moments when Bulkley was busy with his own preparations. At such times, despite his desire for speed in the work, Bulkley made him wait. The proper chemicals or lights were used, and then removed to a spot where neither Newell nor his fellow captives could lay hands on them. BY THE END of the third day, after he had killed as much time as he dared, Newell had three thousand of the dragon-tooth seeds ready. That same night, the trouble that had been brewing finally erupted. The pink sun was setting behind the trees, and the sky was quickly turning dark as Newell returned to the hut that he and Bulkley still shared, his guards dogging his footsteps as usual. Bulkley himself was not in sight. On the other side of the clearing stood the plastex hut, somewhat clumsily put together, that the old man had built for himself and his daughter. Newell had seen little of the girl these past three days, although he had thought of her a great deal. There was irony in the thought that of all the women in the entire planetary system, she was the one that Bulkley had been the most eager to meet, although now that he had her practically in his grasp, he failed to recognize her. Now, as Newell watched, the girl slipped out of her own hut and came toward his. Despite her deliberately unattractive clothes, she moved with the lithe grace of the trained dancer. If Bulkley had happened to see her at that moment, her walk alone might have given her away. But apparently he was nowhere near, and she was able to gain the hut without interference. She came in, her plant-guards following her as they followed all of Bulkley's captives. She began abruptly, "I wanted to talk to you. Alone." He nodded. "Here's your chance." "I don't know whether or not you were telling the truth about being framed. For all the evidence I have, you're as much a criminal as Bulkley." "What do I have to do to convince you that I'm not?" "Nothing. You can't convince me. But it won't matter—at least, for a time. The main thing, is that we've got to work together against him." "Of course. Do you have a plan?" "Father has. He says that Bulkley's so suggestible that if he had even the crudest hypnotic equipment, he'd be able to control the man." "I've looked for equipment we could use. I've found nothing." "Father suggested this television set. He might be able to use some of the transistors. Two would be enough." "That's an idea. But suppose Bulkley comes in and decides to turn on the set?" "That's a risk we'll have to take. Let's hope that we can hypnotize him before he discovers that something's wrong." Newell walked over to the set, and opened it up. Quickly removing two of the tiny tubes, he put them in her hands. "Here they are. Tell your father to make use of them as soon as he can." "Thank you." "Tell him not to go to the trouble of hypnotizing me, though. Tell him that his daughter's eyes have already had that effect." "You're rather suggestible yourself. How long is it since you've seen a woman on this plant?" "A little over six months. But I haven't seen one like you in a lifetime." "It's my clothes that attract you to me," she said sardonically. HE DIDN'T answer in words. He saw a smile playing on her lips, and suddenly, moved by impulse, he pulled her to him, as if anxious to obliterate it with his own lips. For a second or two she let him kiss her, then pushed him away. "Your friend is coming," she said simply. Bulkley's footsteps were audible outside. He came in, saw them, and frowned. "When the cat's away, the mice will play," he said. "I suppose so," she admitted coolly. "The old proverb seems fitting, although I've never seen a cat, and haven't the slightest idea what a mice is." "Mice is plural. Singular mouse," explained Newell. "Once infested Earth, but could never adapt to other planets, and were eventually exterminated." "Good idea, extermination," said Bulkley heavily. "I'd keep you, of course, sweetheart," he told her. "But I'm beginning to think I won't need Newell or your father any more." "You have a tendency to turn to murder to solve your problems, Bulkley," said Newell. "But this time I'm afraid you'd only complicate them. If you want more of those dragon's-teeth seeds, you'll have to keep me around." "I wonder. You talk a little too much about murder, Newell. Almost as if you wanted to dare me. And our little school teacher friend here seems to be daring me in another way. I'd hate to disappoint her." He put a rough hand on the girl's arm. Newell started toward him, only to find himself seized in the firm grip of two plant-creatures. Bulkley said, "Take it easy, Newell. There's nothing you can do." The girl said sharply, "Take your filthy paw off me." That was the only encouragement a man like Bulkley needed: He laughed, and pulled her toward him. What happened then amazed and startled Newell almost as much as it did the other man, although not so painfully. The great body of the man seemed to leap into the air and fly into the wall. He landed with a thud, and sank to the floor, dazed and half unconscious. Newell tried to leap forward toward the flashlight that had slipped from Bulkley's belt. But as he did so, the two plant creatures pulled him back. Rough twigs with bark-like surfaces tightened about his arms and held him helpless. Despite his frustration, he had a feeling of elation, as if he had watched a miracle happen. How in the name of space had the girl done that to Bulkley? Her expression was unruffled, and her lips were smiling again. "I told you I had other talents," she said. "What diabolical trick was that?" asked Newell. "One of the bits of knowledge I picked up while studying the ancient customs of Earth. It was known in its day as—let me see—jiu jitsu. The principles are simple enough, but the results are startling to a modern race which has long forgotten most of what it knew about physical combat." Bulkley was picking himself up from the floor. Suddenly, as if he had convinced himself that what had happened to him the first time was only a bad dream, he rushed at her again. THIS TIME he landed against the furniture and bounced off to the wall so violently that Newell hoped the man's skull was cracked. "The greater the effort he makes, the harder he lands," explained the girl. "That's one of the beauties of jiu jitsu." Bulkley's skull was a little too strong for plastex. He picked himself up, hesitated for a moment as if to attack again, and then thought better of it. "Get back to your own hut," he told her hoarsely. "I'll attend to you later." The girl left, her manner prim and dignified, the manner of a school teacher who has just given an unusually stupid pupil a lesson. Bulkley glowered after her, and then turned to face Newell. "Wipe that smile off your face," he ordered, in a rage. "I wasn't smiling at you, my friend. I was just pitying you. You really were a pathetic sight." "Keep your mouth shut, damn you!" roared the man. "You'd better be careful from now on, Bulkley. That girl is dangerous. Too bad we don't have an X-ray machine here. You may have a serious concussion." "I'm all right, and mind your own business." He turned to the television set, and Newell realized that he intended to get his favorite program, hoping perhaps that Indra herself would appear. But the set did not light up. "You probably smashed the insides when you landed against it," said Newell hastily. He stared into the set. "Whew! Everything's in a mess in here." This time Bulkley cursed bitterly, emitting a long string of oaths that to Newell had novelty and interest, if not charm. Finally he turned away, and sank into his chair. A little while later he went into his room, and dropped off to sleep. But Newell stayed up. He thought for a while of the girl, and then of Bulkley, and what he could possibly do to free himself from the man's grip. If only the plant-creatures were less alert! He was glad to see that they hadn't responded to the girl's motions when she had thrown Bulkley head over, heels. That was because she had moved suddenly, and her motions had been on a small scale —the shift of weight from one foot to another, the use of one arm for leverage, the other for a gentle push. If he moved like that, perhaps he would be able to put something over on them. He brooded for a long time, trying to find a way. When finally he too went to sleep, he had made up his mind to wait for the right conditions, and then attempt a sudden dash for safety. It was the roar of an approaching space ship that awoke them shortly before dawn. Newell and Bulkley rushed out of the hut, to stare up and see the faint white exhaust from the rocket tubes far off near the horizon against the fading blackness of the night. The patrol ship, of course. The patrol ship that would try to cook Bulkley's goose. He would have to stay for a while. The ship was coming down at a gentle slope, using the resistance of the atmosphere, as well as its own braking jets, to brake its fall. Its hull gleamed a low red from the heat of friction, then faded into pale gray, the shimmer of heat waves dancing around as it slowed down and made a gradual landing. It settled to the ground in a clearing half a mile from their own plastex hut. Bulkley's eyes were glistening with anticipation. "That ship's all I need," he gloated. "I capture that and I get off the planet." "You'll never get away with it," said Newell. "No? You watch." And because he had nothing better to do, Newell watched, with a gathering dread whose intensity grew from moment to, moment. DAWN WAS breaking. A door opened in the side of the ship, and in the distance two men got out. The two tiny figures carried a heavy gun of some sort unknown to Newell. This they mounted at the side of the ship, ready fox any emergency except that which actually threatened. Newell opened his mouth to yell a warning, and as he did so, Bulkley signaled an order with his flashlight. A wooden arm closed around Newell's throat and choked off his cry. More men were getting off the ship. They moved cautiously, in pairs, and without suspicion of the real danger. They knew that two men had been left on the planet, and that one of them had attacked the freighter. But the planet itself was supposed to contain no wild beasts, no plants whose existence meant peril. They could see about them now as the pink sun continued rising slowly over the horizon. What they saw seemed harmless—odd perhaps, but not threatening. Brown and white tree stumps stood rooted in the ground near the ship, branches lopped off in a most unusual fashion, so that stump after stump bore a great resemblance to a human scarecrow. They had never seen anything like these stumps before, but this was a new planet to them, and far stranger things were to be seen on other new planets. With his flashlight, Bulkley shot an ultraviolet signal toward the ship. The captain was expecting no signals, and paid no attention to the response of one of the instruments on his panel. But the brown and white scarecrows sprang into activity. A pair of them leaped for the nearest gun, tore it from the grip of the startled patrol men who had held it, and turned it on the ship itself. With the sound of firing, a shrill cry of alarm rang out. Terror awoke, and grew at the sudden attack. The terrain around tile ship became a field of battle. Men fell into the clutches of the plant-creatures and did not rise again. Those that survived the first onslaught raced back toward the ship. Some of the plant-men were hit too. Newell, the grip on his throat loosened now, could see them running around, their arms, legs, bodies in flames, their faces totally oblivious of such feelings and motions as pain and fear. The sight added the final touch of terror to the surprised patrol crew. Those already in the ship yelled to the others to close the door. But it was already too late. The plant-creatures were inside the ship now, disregarding weapons fired at them point-blank, hunting down the survivors. Though their wooden bodies were torn and shattered, they were still capable of killing. Bulkley was gloating, his eyes ablaze with the fervor of the despised man who sees his desperate plans working like a charm. "The ship's mine," he shouted. "Do you realize that, Newell? A complete space ship. All mine. I can pack five hundred of my army into it and take them with me to the nearest planetary outpost; nothing will be able to stand before me." He was right, thought Newell. The ship was his; the peaceful colonies on unprotected planets lay open to attack. Many a lone-wolf outlaw had dreamed of revenge on society for the wrongs he imagined he had suffered, for the punishments that the innocent had inflicted on him for his crimes. Yes, Bulkley was going to make these outlaw dreams come true. The field of battle was empty of enemies now—the few human beings still on it were dead. Bulkley took a step forward. And the planet shook. 'T'HE GROUND rocked and trembled under foot like a vast heap of jelly. They could feel the vibrations from some distant slide of rock strata. In the forest ahead of them, a row of trees suddenly tipped over, as if toppled by a giant hand. Bulkley fell, his flashlight flying away from him. Newell, dropping to all fours for his own safety, made a lunge for the flashlight, his fingers closing about it. Bulkley did not notice him. The plant-creatures had reacted in an unexpected way. Their foot-like appendages became rooted in the ground, held them firm. The wind was rising now, and as sudden gusts came blustering down upon them, they bent before it, springing up again when the pressure was released. It was useless to try to use the lights upon them now. Newell did not know the combinations of wave lengths to which they responded, and the stimuli from the wind were now so strong as to control their movements. He saw Bulkley rise and turn to him, to shout a few words which the wind carried away, and then take a step toward him. The ground between the two men opened up. A gulf suddenly yawned between them, a dozen feet wide and a hundred deep. Newell knew from previous experience that the earthquakes were violent, but that the series of shocks was of short duration. In a few moments, Bulkley would recover his wits, and regain control of the plant-creatures. If there was a chance to escape, Newell would have to take it now. He tried to run, but the wind, now of hurricane force, knocked him down, and he crawled as fast as he could over the heaving ground. He could hear nothing but the howling of the wind, and up above streamers shot out of the sun, while the great disk of the flaming star itself grew dark and gloomy as the vast clouds of dust rose into the air and obscured the light. He reached the rows of fallen trees, and began to crawl over the tops of them. Suddenly, as suddenly as it had begun; the earthquake ended. The ground grew firm beneath the fallen trees, the heaving, as of a ship in a violent storm, came to an end. The wind still blew, but not quite with its former force. From second to second he could feel how its strength subsided. Only the clouds of dust still obscured the sun, which he knew from past experience would not regain its brightness for at least a day. He sank down among the trees. Bulkley would soon be looking for him, desperate because of his need for more dragon-tooth seeds, more soldiers. The seeds which Newell had already prepared would not sprout, as Newell well realized, and the other man's rage would be something fearful to behold. In the distance Newell could see the two plastex huts, their sides cracked and twisted. Well, that damage amounted to little. Plastex Powder could be poured into the cracks for repairs, and a twisted hut, although novel in design, was just as good a shelter as one with straight sides. But the ship—and then he realized why he could see so far ahead of him. The ship had sunk into the ground, which had opened beneath the great hull and then closed again with the power of a gigantic nut cracker. The metal hull was shattered now shattered beyond hope of repair. It was the same thing that had happened to the other space ship long before Newell and Bulkley had arrived on the planet. He could hear the sound of Bulkley's cursing. The man could not get off the planet now. He would have to wait for another patrol ship to come searching for the first one. His plans would have to be delayed. And for Newell, delay meant hope. Bulkley would, he knew, send his plant-creatures to search for him from the moment the man recovered from the immediate effects of the disaster. Newell had to get further away. Only distance meant safety. HE BEGAN to make his way through the trees, when unexpectedly the sound of human speech came to his ears. He swung around. Indra was helping her father over a fallen tree trunk. They too had escaped. Bulkley was without human companionship now, alone with his army of plant-soldiers. And he was more desperate and more dangerous than ever. The old man saw him and a smile broke over the old withered face. Now there was somebody else besides the old gentleman's daughter to talk to. "Ah, my dear sir," began Hilton. "I am pleased to see that you too have escaped. It is an ill wind that blows no good." "This wind didn't do half the damage the earthquake did." "And those creatures." The girl shuddered. "The slaughter was sickening. I had to turn my eyes away." "The slaughter will be repeated with the next patrol ship," said Newell soberly. "Unless we find a way to stop it." The old pedagogue shrugged. "It was very difficult even under the previous conditions, as you well realize, Mr. Newell, to get at Bulkley. It will be doubly difficult now that we have escaped. He will undoubtedly post guards to watch for us." "We'll have to think of ways of getting past them: How is that hypnotic device of yours coming along?" "Ah I had almost forgotten. Thank you, sir, for reminding me. The fact is, that it is coming along, to use your phrase. Indeed; it is completed. It has not, however, undergone actual test, so I cannot vouch for its effectiveness." From his pocket he pulled out what seemed like a short blunt plastex tube. "Observe." Newell stared at the end of the tube. He could see it begin to glow dully, turn cherry red, orange, white, and then orange and red again. The next time it raced through the spectral gamut of colors from red to violet, faded out, and seemed to retrace its steps. And all the time its intensity ebbed and flowed, ebbed and flowed, as pulses of energy raced one after the other through the short tube. He was tired, Newell realized, tired of the horrifying excitement of the battle. He would like to get away from everything, forget the planet, forget Bulkley, forget the plant-creatures. He would like to rest, to sleep His head snapped back, and he was suddenly alert. "Take that thing away!" he shouted. The old man chuckled with satisfaction. "Indeed, sir, this is more effective than I had thought. The combination of color change and intensity fluctuation makes it difficult for most people to resist. The exact rhythm is, of course, of great importance. It is the result of a great many experiments, a great deal of work and thought for which I, sir, cannot claim a particle of credit! The principle was first discovered by a professor of a distant system—" "Never mind that. Mr. Hilton. The main thing is that it works." "Yes, it is, as I say, rather effective, even when used without the adjust of suggestion. If, in addition, sleep-suggestive words or, on occasion, syllables, are employed, successful hypnosis is almost guaranteed. If you are one of those unfortunate sufferers from insomnia, troubled sleep, inability to relax—" For the first time that morning Newell found something to laugh at. "You don't have to go into your Dr. Hypno spiel," he said. "I'll take your word for it that it works." THE OLD man fondled the hypnotic device, like a child with his toy. "I am rather anxious now," he said. "to get a chance to use this on Bulkley." "Later, Father, later," his daughter told him, and the old man smiled, and seemed to become absent-mindedly lost in his own thoughts, as he wandered away from them into the forest. Newell turned to the girl, noticing now that in her haste to escape she hadn't managed to make herself as unattractive as usual. Her clothes fitted the lithe body more snugly and disturbingly. Looking at her now, you could believe that she was the dancer who had appeared on television and aroused the enthusiasm of the inhabitants of an entire planetary system. But her own mind did not seem to be on her appearance. She was in a serious mood as she said, "We can't stay out here in the woods for long." "You mean because of your father." "Yes. He's only a hundred and twenty, but he's not in good health. And if the weather should turn bad—" "You needn't worry about the weather here. It's mild all year round, and there's little rain. It's the wind that's dangerous. Even when there are no earthquakes, it sometimes rises to hurricane force, and the falling trees would be deadly." "We'll have to find a cleared space." "And we'll have to watch out for those plant-creatures. Bulkley may send them out looking for us." He thought she looked troubled, but he could not read the expression in her eyes behind the lenses. Once more he reached toward her and lifted the octagonal glasses from her face. This time she did not slap him. "You don't really need those," he said. "They've just become a habit," she admitted. "Meant to keep people at a distance. But you don't need them with me. You have your jiu jitsu." "Yes, I can always fall back on that." "I suppose I risk being thrown, head over heels if I so much as try to kiss you." "I'm sure that you realize that it's happened to others before you." "It's a risk that's worth taking." He was not thrown head over heels. But when he let go of her, his brain was in such a whirl that he felt almost as if he had been. Bulkley sent his plant-slaves after them that very day, a few hours before the sun was due to set. It was hard at first to see the creatures coming, for their brown and white surfaces blended all too perfectly with the natural browns and whites and greens of their parent forest. But when they moved forward, they became visible. And soon Newell could see them, from twenty-five to fifty of them, scattered in a long thin row and marching straight ahead, slowly, giving a terrifying impression of implacable power. "What do we do?" whispered the girl. "We can't fight them." "I know one thing we can do to beat them off. But it'll take time: Meanwhile, we run. They can't move fast enough to catch us." "But my father is too old!" "He won't have to race along. We have a head start, and if we keep going steadily, a fast walk will do. The important thing is to keep the distance between us and them, and to add to it." They turned and began to crash through the forest. The old man grumbled, at first. Running away was beneath his dignity. He would face these creatures and stand on his rights, explain to them that what they were doing was illegal and would be punished. NEWELL did not wait to hear what else the old man wanted to say. He simply dragged the unwilling pedagogue along and, soon, lack of breath forced his companion to stop talking. They had been moving for an hour, more at a fast walk than at a run, when a slight wind arose. It was cool and pleasant, and blew in their faces so refreshingly that at first Newell did not think of what it might mean to his plans; When he realized how it could help, he came to a stop. There were dead and dried trees scattered all through the forest, and inside them he found the tinder he needed. The flashlight he had taken from Bulkley had tiny permanent batteries that were capable of giving a strong spark. It was the work of but a moment to set fire to the tinder, and to nurse the tiny flame until it grew fierce and ravenous. Using a flaming branch, he spread the fire through the forest. The wind, blowing steadily, spread the blaze into a continuous sheet, and urged it forward. The sound of crackling branches became a steady roar, a roar that rose louder and louder as it seized upon new fuel. The sheet of flame swept on, driven by the wind, and accompanied by the fierce crescendo music that its own fury aroused. Into the flames walked the plant-creatures. Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die. They died. Newell could see some of them, animate torches stalking through a sea of flame. They moved forward as long as they could, and when the flames had seized them too completely, they toppled over and finished burning to the ground. There was something to be said after all, he thought, for human beings, with all their fears and imperfections. The very fact that they had reason to live made them worse soldiers under conditions where sacrifices were needed. But sometimes sacrifices were stupid and in vain. Sometimes the best thing a soldier could do for his own cause was to be afraid, and keep himself alive. And that kind of wisdom the plant-creatures did not have. Indra looked troubled. "They seem so—so human," she said. "I know they're not, but all the same, I felt as if I were watching human beings walk to their deaths." He nodded somberly. "I feel the same way. But Bulkley doesn't. To him their lives are meaningless as the lives of so many blades of grass. That's where he has the advantage over us." "And he has almost two thousand more in reserve?" "Almost. A few were killed in the attack on the ship, and more have just been burnt, but he still has the greater part of his slave army." Sudden rage seized him at the thought. "The army that I provided for him." "No use worrying about it now. Father seems tired, and can't run any further. Let's think of shelter for the night." He shook his head impatiently. "There's something else to do, and I'm the only one who can do it. You find a place for yourself and your father to sleep if you want to. I'm setting to work." "What do we do for food?" "I'll show you which plants are edible." He pointed out a small bush. "You can collect these berries. They're tasty and nourishing. If you want to, you can collect a meal for me, after you yourself have eaten. In the meantime, the only thing you can give me is inspiration." She eluded his arms. "No, I don't want you to forget your work." He would have forgotten it, he told himself. Now that he knew her better, he realized that she could make him forget anything but herself. He put the thought aside, and began to collect the seeds he needed. Equipment he could improvise. And most of the necessary chemicals he'd be able to extract from the same kinds of plants he had used before. SOON HE was so lost in his work that it came as a shock of surprise when she appeared before him with berries to eat. He ate mechanically, hardly aware of the taste of the food. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Fighting fire with fire—another kind of fire. Trying to create a slave army of my own." "How long before they're ready?" "Two days to prepare the seeds, another day for them to grow, and for the plant creatures to undergo preliminary training." "Suppose Bulkley finds us before then?" "Then we're out of luck. The fact is, even if he doesn't find us, I'll have to go looking for danger. I don't have all the chemicals I need. One complex compound is in a vial, in what's left of our plastex hut. I'll have to go back for it." "That's insane! You'll never be able to get away with it!" "I'll have to try." She had turned pale, and Newell thought with surprise, "She's worried about me. Is it because she's counting on me to protect her against Bulkley —or is it something deeper?" She said, "I'll go with you. Two will stand a better chance than one." "No. You'd only distract me. I'd be thinking of your safety instead of my own." "I want to help you. In any way you say. I can help you prepare your chemicals." He shook his head doubtfully. "That requires careful work." "I can do careful work. I've done experiments in science. Have you forgotten that I'm a school teacher?" He looked at her. The effort to escape through the forest from the pursuing plant-creatures had torn her once ill-fitting clothes in many places, and lent them a casual charm they had not originally possessed. There were rips through which he could see her body, and it was not the kind of body he thought of as belonging to a school teacher. Doubtless, he was doing school teachers an injustice. "Good thing you reminded me," he grunted. And he turned back to his labors. Thanks to her help, it was evening of the following day, sooner than he had expected, when he retraced his path toward the plastex hut that he had shared for six months with the man who now wanted to kill him. He had a weapon—the hypnotizer that Indra's father had fashioned. It was much less reliable than a gun, but it was the best he could get, and it would have to do. If he was lucky, he would avoid Bulkley altogether, and not have the chance to use it. But if Bulkley discovered him trying to steal that vial of chemical— He shrugged. There would be trouble, and all the advantages would be on the other man's side. He must avoid discovery as long as he could. He made his way cautiously through the forest in the darkness, not daring to use his flashlight. He knew, even before his feet crunched the charred wood, when he had reached the burned-out portion of the forest. The odor of burnt wood was overpowering. And here and there, after more than twenty-five hours, sparks still glowed in the night, like tiny signal fires lighting his way. After the burnt forest was behind him, he became even more cautious. Bulkley, he knew, now that the man was alone, would be sleeping with the lightness and insecurity of a feral beast, ready to start up at any noise. The plant-creatures were not very sensitive to slight sounds, not unless they had been conditioned to sound more thoroughly than Newell imagined was possible. But with light-receptors scattered all over their surfaces, they had an extraordinary sensitiveness to light. The merest alteration of dim light to faint shadow, or vice versa, might arouse them. ONCE A TWIG snapped under his feet, and he came to a halt. But in the army of resting plant-creatures, all was quiet, and after a tense thirty seconds he went on again, more carefully this time, testing the ground with each foot before he let his weight fall upon it. A hundred yards to one side he was aware of a darker shadow, of a great mass that was even blacker than the surrounding black. It was the smashed hull of the space ship, won by ruthless slaughter, and wrecked in a moment of giant and more ruthless playfulness by the planet itself. Now only the top protruded above the level of the surrounding soil. As he approached the hut, he dropped to the ground and crawled. The less possibility of casting a shadow, he told himself, the better. Walking was more convenient, but also more dangerous. He crawled, slowly and painfully. He was at the door of the hut. Quiet reigned, a dead absence of sound held sway. No, there was a sound—something low and menacing, something—I'm a damn fool, he thought. It's my own breathing. He held his breath, and heard through the walls of the hut the faintest of sighs. Now it was Bulkley's breathing he heard, the breathing of a Bulkley who slept untroubled, with no murderous dreams to disturb his rest, no fear of danger to himself. There must be plant-creatures on guard, he told himself, some of them must be present in the hut itself. But the hut is dark. Lucky for me that they're not very sensitive to heat radiations as I established with those television set parts. Don't want my body heat to set them off. But they are sensitive to the near-visible infrared, and visible light, and ultraviolet. For plants, they're unusually sensitive. But they need a stimulus in order to respond. No stimulus, no response. If they don't see me, if not so much as a single photon sets off their light-receptors, I'm safe. Inside the hut now. Stop again, listen again—Bulkley's breathing is louder now, I can hear it almost like an intermittent roar when I hold my own breath, but there's no other change. If only I don't touch a plant-creature in the dark. I know where the chemical I want is, I can feel my way around without switching on a light, as I did for so many months when I lived here. Bulkley may have made changes in the past few days, but he hasn't changed the location of the closet. Ah, here it is. I reach inside. Here are the bottles, large and small. I don't need to read the labels to know what's inside them. Acids, indole derivatives—ah, here's the vial I want. I know its size, its shape. All I need now is a single crystal, but common sense dictates that I take it all. I may need more later, and besides, there's no sense leaving anything for Bulkley to use. Theft mission accomplished safely —or almost, anyway. Now to get away from here. Unexpectedly—a noise. A noise not from the hut itself, but from overhead. A faint drone like that of some insect zooming through the air, preparing for a dive at the end of which it will dip its tiny jaws into human skin for a meal of blood. The drone becomes a roar—the roar of a space ship. Another patrol vessel, of course, here to see what happened to its predecessor. More cautious than the first one, scanning the planet for danger before landing, with no desire to come down in the dark. Very smart, laudably smart. But helpless for all its smartness and all its caution, because its captain and its crew don't realize the real danger, don't realize that death comes from the harmless plants with which the surface of the planet is covered. STILL, caution keeps the ship safe for the moment. The roar dies away to a faint drone again, to silence again, as the visitors scout the planet. Hope they don't find us too soon. Hope it for their sake. Not a sound now. Not even the sound of Bulkley's breathing. And that's odd. Very odd. A man asleep breathes deeply, heavily— But Bulkley isn't asleep. Bulkley is standing in the doorway of his room, a flashlight in one hand, a weapon in the other. Bulkley is grinning evilly at him, ready to shoot, ready to kill. Wish to amend previous report. Theft mission not accomplished safely. The man moved forward. "Don't move, Newell," he cautioned. "Not unless you want to die in a hurry." Newell froze. That damned space ship, he told himself bitterly. Cautious as all space itself. So cautious that it woke him up. The flashlight went off as the room lights went on. Bulkley said comfortably, "Sit down. Be comfortable. Make yourself at home. Make believe you live here." Humor from Bulkley, of all people. Or was it just humor? The place was home, the house was still as comfortable as ever, but that wasn't the reason Bulkley wanted him to sit. A sitting man couldn't leap at you with the suddenness that a standing man could. A sitting man was like a sitting duck, easy to keep under the muzzle of your own weapon, and his weapon of surprise taken away from him. "Thought you'd be back, Newell. Thought you wouldn't want to leave your old pal without saying good-bye. And you're not getting away again. I don't expect another earthquake soon, but if there is one, I'll shoot you dead at the first sign of it." HE'LL SHOOT me anyway when he has no more use for me. What do I do now? Those plant-creatures are watching me. Three of them here with us in the room. Strange to think that they were here all the time, like dummies, hearing nothing, seeing nothing, doing nothing. Tough-Egg and Kind-Mugg—I recognize them. Or are these their twins? Could be. The third one looks even more human. A brown scar with white trimmings down a brown and white face. Scar-face. Human and sinister. Never mind how they look. It's how they act that counts. They act like robots, perfect robots under Bulkley's control. Well, not perfect, perhaps. They have their weaknesses. But none that I can count on. The question is: What do I do now? Nothing with them directly. Can't think of a thing to do. Bulkley is very likely the real weak link in the chain that's got me trapped. Settle his hash, and the robots are left without orders, they're harmless. Yes, put Bulkley out of commission for a few seconds, and you get a start. And given that start, you can outrun them, especially in the dark. Let's start off. My hand can slip casually along the arm of the plastex chair in which I'm sitting. Bulkley notices nothing wrong. Good. The thing now is to talk, talk heatedly passionately—talk in any way that will arouse Bulkley's interest, get him excited, not let him see what that hand is going to do. The hand is going to be quicker than the distracted eye. The hand is going to slip into a pocket and pull out the hypnotizer. The pulsing light will glow and change color, and then Bulkley's eyes will be drawn to it, and then, before he realizes what it is and what it's doing to him..." "All right, Bulkley, you've got me. What do you want of me?" "First thing, I want you to help me get that girl back." "That school teacher? Thought you didn't like her." "School-teacher in a space-devil's eye. She's that danced I had her in my hands and didn't realize it. Just last night I was watching that program —yes, I fixed the television set, my friend, and found that some of the parts were-missing. But anyway, I was watching the program, and it struck me that I had seen her face before." "Quick on the trigger. That's you, Bulkley." "I'm the one who's in a position to be funny, Newell, not you." "Sure, sure you're a born humorist." He's beginning to burn. Fine. He isn't watching my hand at all. "I'm warning you for the last time, Newell. Don't, try to be funny. I want that girl back." Laugh at him. Laugh when you want to smash his face. "You're crazy, Bulkley. Or is it your turn to try to be funny?" "I'm not crazy and I'm not funny. I want her back." "You heard me. The answer is, `No'." The man's eyes are glittering. Hope I don't carry this too far. Don't want him to shoot. His lips seem to be dry. He licks them before speaking. "You're a fool, Newell." Softly, dangerously. "A complete fool. What's the girl to you? You've know her for only a couple of days. She means nothing to you. She can't possibly mean anything. And whether you live or die, sooner or later I'll get her anyway. I'm offering you your life if you help me get her now." "You're wasting your time." Wrong tactics, here. I should stall, ask him what he wants me to do. But I can't. Not on a subject like this. To hell with even thinking of stalling on a subject like this. "If this is the subject you want to talk about, shoot me and get it over with. I won't discuss it." THAT'S stopping him. His face is red with anger and frustration. He may shoot at that. He says evenly, "Whatever I decide to do to you, Newell, it won't be the way you want it to be. I won't shoot you and just get it over with. That would be pleasant for you. But I don't like to cut my own pleasures short that way. For a time, at least, I'm going to keep you alive." "You can't keep me alive against my will. Try to torture me, and I'll kill myself. And I'll take you with me." "You tempt me, Newell." The words are slow; weighed carefully. "I hesitate to tell you how much you tempt me. I've hated your guts ever since I've known you—" "Ever since you framed me. We always hate those we hurt. Sense of guilt, I suppose." "You're wrong. I don't feel guilty about what I've done to you. I'm only sorry it wasn't worse. And I'm going to do all I can to make it worse." "Aren't you overlooking something, Bulkley? We're not going to be alone on this planet much longer. That was a space ship that awoke you." "I know that. I heard it." "Isn't that going to interfere with your plans? Some place out there—" his left arm gestured vaguely toward vaguely toward the window "—that ship will be landing soon. The captain and the crew know that something is wrong with this planet. That's why they came in such a hurry to search for the first ship. They'll be careful, this time. You won't catch them by surprise again." "You're a fool." Contempt is in his voice. "They can't be careful enough, because they don't realize what they have to be careful about. What ship ever worries about being attacked by trees?" He's right, he's saying what I myself think. But I can't let him know that I agree with him. "They'll be suspicious of everything." "No, they won't be suspicious of the one thing they should suspect." Like you, my friend. You're watching to make sure that I don't try to leap at you from this chair. But you're not suspicious of the vague gesture I make with my left arm. You don't realize that your eyes follow it without your meaning them to, and that while your attention is distracted toward the window, my right hand has slipped into a pocket and drawn out the hypnotizer. Now to start it going—low power, at first, so that you don't even realize the light's on. Low power, and in the near-visible infrared, so that your eyes begin to be affected without your actually seeing anything. You're susceptible to suggestion, the old man proved that when he first spoke to you in my presence. Before you know it, your eyes will be glazed, you won't be able to tear them away. You'll do as I tell you, and all your desperate plans will end in failure. Mustn't look at the light myself, though. I know what it can do. I'll resist it if my eyes do happen to glance at it, but still it's best not to take chances. Fine joke it would be if I were hypnotized myself. Turn the power up a bit, slowly, gradually, so he doesn't even realize the light is visible— Bulkley is talking abruptly. Words mean little now, but I have to pretend to listen. "However, that space thing isn't the thing I want to talk about. I'll handle it when the time comes. And then there won't be another earthquake to crush it, and I'll have a ship I can use to get off this damned planet." "So you think." "That's the way it'll be. But how about you, Newell? Do you want to live or die? Or maybe that isn't the question. Because after I start working on you, I know that you'll want to die, even if I decided to let you live. The real question is whether you'll do it the easy way, or insist on suffering a little first." "Let's be reasonable, Bulkley." Just a moment of reason, before the thing has him under control. "I don't like to be tortured any more than the next man. But what you're asking—" "Cut it out, Newell." THERE'S something unexpected in the man's voice. Something I don't understand and don't like. There's a sneer of brutal triumph, an overwhelming tone of contempt. Have I made a fool of myself? "What do you mean, cut it out?" "Stop stalling for time: Because that thing you have in your hand isn't working. And it isn't going to work, no matter how long you keep it going. I'm not susceptible to hypnotizers." Impossible. He's lying, trying to upset me. The dirty rat is wide open to suggestion. The hypnotizer will work in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred even on the average man, and there's no reason why it shouldn't affect him. Bulkley's laughing. "There are a few things about me that you didn't know, Newell. I never thought of telling them to you. When I was under investigation, they also figured, as I knew they would, that I'd be susceptible to suggestion, and they tried to hypnotize me. But I was way ahead of them. I pretended to let myself go, but told them nothing, absolutely nothing." "But how—" "Because I can't be hypnotized." Triumph in the brutal voice again. "I'm immune to it, at least when tried by any ordinary man or with any ordinary device. You immunize yourself against bacterial infection, viral infection—well, I immunized myself against hypnotism long ago. I went to a specialist who got me under control, and then gave me this posthypnotic suggestion: Never let yourself be hypnotized again. Clever trick for a murderer, isn't it, Newell? And the suggestion's still working." HE'S OUTWITTED me. Let him gloat, he has a right to do it. Crude, murderous, brutal—he's also got a kind of shrewdness I hadn't counted on. He's made a complete fool of me. And the cost—the cost is not only my own life, which doesn't count any more, but Indra's, her father's. THE SIGHT of his desperate face must have been funny. Bulkley chose that moment to laugh again—and within the fraction of a second, the very, strength of desperation had sent Newell leaping out of his chair, his hands reaching straight for the man's throat. Bulkley's arm went up instinctively in a gesture of self-protection, and a hoarse cry came from his lips. "Help!" The plant-creatures didn't move. Newell's hands missed the throat, balled into fists, and smashed at the other man's jaw. Bulkley staggered backward, fell. And still his once faithful slaves did not come to his help. Tough-Egg, Kind-Mugg, Scar-Face, all three stood as if paralyzed—no, as if hypnotized. The hypnotizer which had failed on Bulkley had succeeded with them! Bulkley cursed, and his hand went to the weapon at his side. Newell threw a chair at him. The chair landed, but did not knock the weapon from his hand. Newell raced for the door, and plunged through just as a blast tore a hole through the wall behind him. He was running in the darkness now, his hypnotizer still glowing. It made him a target for Bulkley, but he had to risk it, now that he knew what it could do to the plant-creatures. He should have suspected what would happen. They reacted in different ways to different light stimuli. When the lights followed one another in rapid succession, as they did in the hypnotizer, they were stimulated to do different, contradictory things. The result was that they did nothing, standing motionless like the plants from which they had descended. Bulkley was pursuing him in the darkness. A blast came, ripping a hole of flame in the night before the darkness overwhelmed it again. And then Newell ducked behind a genuine tree, and Bulkley could no longer see the glow of light, could no longer follow. Newell heard his curses die away in the distance. He paused for a moment to catch his breath before going ahead. Later, when he told Indra of his narrow escape, he could see how strongly she was affected. Her face paled, her voice shook. "He'll be murderous now," she shuddered. "He'll come after you, do anything to revenge himself on you." "He may send the plant-creatures after us. But now we can defend ourselves from them with the hypnotizer, and Bulkley knows that. He'd have to come himself if he really wanted to get us." "He knows that in the long run we can't escape. Father can't run far. And I wouldn't leave him to Bulkley's mercy." "But Bulkley doesn't have the time to spare for us. Don't you see, Indra, he has to be ready for that space ship. He doesn't know where it will land, and he can't take chances with it. It may blast a cleared space among the trees and come down among them. And then the sight of his plant-creatures, no matter how much they imitate other trees, will arouse suspicion. Bulkley has to arrange his soldier-slaves beforehand, give them signals as to what to do." "So you think we're safe for a while?" "Until the space ship comes down and is attacked." "But we can't let those crew men be slaughtered the same way the others were. We have to do something!" "What?" "Warn them, signal them—" "Not so long as they're up in the air. We don't have the proper equipment for that. Besides, they'll be suspicious of whoever contacts them. If we did try to signal them too soon, they'd beware of us, not of Bulkley. No, the best thing we can do is plan to reach the ship after it comes down, and spoil Bulkley's surprise." "You mean to use the hypnotizer?" "It should be helpful." "But suppose Bulkley realizes that," she pointed out. "He'll try to recondition his creatures. You say that he himself foresaw that attempts would be made to hypnotize him, and took steps against it. Suppose he finds a way to protect those plant-creatures against hypnosis?" Newell nodded slowly. "You're right, Indra, there's that danger. I can't laugh it off. I've been underestimating Bulkley all along, but I mustn't underestimate him now. That might be fatal—" "If we had such a thing as a flame-thrower—" "We haven't. But talking about flame-throwers reminds me, Indra. As I said before, we have to fight fire with fire. And slaves with slaves. I'm almost ready to do so now." He pulled from his pocket the vial which he had gone to so much trouble to obtain. "We'll have to go ahead with our experiments, as fast as we can. I'll work through the night to get the dragon-tooth seeds ready for planting." "How about the field to plant them in?" "That has to be prepared too. It won't take long to make the proper chemical solutions for that, though. And you can help me." "Aren't you glad now that I'm a school teacher and have such good ideas?" HE HELD her in the darkness and laughed. "I didn't fall in love with you for your ideas." "You're like any other man. You fall in love for the worst reasons. Because to you I was a pretty face on a television screen!" "Not only a face." "Don't make me blush." "Blush? You're still a school teacher after all! Put on your glasses and get to work!" The planet had no moon, but during the night the sky cleared, and the starlight poured down upon them, bright, clear, and cool. Newell switched off the flashlight, which he had been using from time to time as he mixed his chemicals, and went ahead with his work in the semi-darkness. Indra worked near him, and the thought of her, so close that he was aware of her every movement, sent a warm thrill through him. No wonder Bulkley envied him, went mad with rage when he thought of Newell's good fortune. He was within a few minutes of completing his work, when the new day dawned. Indra's father had been sleeping a short distance away, on a heap of leaves which his daughter had carefully collected and made up into a soft bed. Now he arose, somewhat stiffly, and shook both the drowsiness and the leaves from him. "These are indeed primitively simple surroundings for a man of a hundred and twenty-one," he commented.. "And I do not believe that sleeping on the ground is favorable to the condition of my joints. No, indeed, I regard that as a most injudicious proceeding, although, in the circumstances, inevitable. Nevertheless, sir I imagine that the over-all effect is rather invigorating. There is nothing like direct contact with nature to restore the energy of the human psyche." Newell, too busy with his work to have time for small talk, grunted. "It is gratifying to know, sir, that you are in agreement with me. It is living in this manner that gives promise for the future of humanity. I sometimes am inclined to believe, Mr. Newell, that our present mode of existence is too complicated, too confusing. It baffles the soul, deprives it of contact with true cosmic greatness. Yes, I fear that we have lost contact with the true Truth, we have been deprived of the simplicity that once was ours. We dwell in great cities, on amazing planets that are parts of great systems. We go, in the happy and carefree days of youth, to great nurseries, and then to great schools, great universities. We enter upon great and difficult duties. It was different, in the old days." Old men weren't any different, though, thought Newell. Wonder if they could talk quite as well as that. When you listened to that rich resonant voice and didn't pay too much attention to the meaning, you might actually think he was saying something different. So times have changed—imagine thinking that was a great discovery! But that voice—no wonder the old boy's a good hypnotist. The very way he thinks is calculated to put you to sleep. Fuzzy mind, furry voice—wonder if they had any quite as good as him then, always looking back with regret to their old days. "My father, sir, lived to a hundred and sixty-three, and even then it was only accident that ended his life. I was born when he was one hundred and eleven. I come from a long-lived line, sir, a line that retains its manly powers for many years." Boasting, huh? Okay, Pop, go ahead. Indra must have heard him. "Father," she called. "Yes, dear?" "I know that Mr. Newell is too polite and too considerate to ask you, but we are doing something in a hurry—" "An enterprise of great moment, eh, dear?" "Yes, it's important. It would be very nice if you could help." "Anything within the limits of my abilities, Indra, dear, anything within the rather wide limits of my abilities. Tell me your difficulties, and I shall do my best to counsel you properly." "You don't understand, Father. We don't need advice. We'll tell you what to do." The old throat cleared. "Unfortunately, Indra, as you know, I lack the abounding physical energies that once were mine. Mentally I am as alert as ever, but physically— "It won't be difficult, Father." "One moment. Indra, I must tell Mr. Newell something. Would you believe it, sir, when I was twenty-three, and a student at the Intermediate—no, at the Lesser Galactic Graduate School—Section 4A—or was it 5C?— let me see, now—" "Here, Father," said Indra coaxingly. "It's really very simple. It's a matter of digging furrows, as we sometimes see in the pictures that have come down to us from primitive times." "Such menial labor as that, eh, daughter?" But he went over to her, and Indra, to Newell's surprise, soon had him doing useful work. Newell shook his head to get all those words out of his ears, and then went on with his own work. Unexpected difficulties had cropped up. The sun was two hours above the horizon when he finally began to plant the dragon-tooth seeds. IT WENT slower here than when he had first planted them. This was no cleared field where he could stride without watching his footsteps. This was a partial clearing at best, the path broken by trees, stumps, and bushes of all kinds. But there had been no time to seek for better ground. This would have to do to raise a crop of the dragon-tooth creatures. The girl and the old man watched in awe as the shoots began to push their way up. Now, as the growing plants became gradually more human in appearance, there was no effect as of an army of men springing into existence. Each plant-creature was surrounded by other plants, so that as the young shoots grew they appeared to be merely coming out of a hiding place which they had assumed long before. "Remarkable," said the old man. "A most remarkable phenomenon. Still, it is not absolutely unprecedented. I recall the descriptions of some of the plant-beasts of the lesser known stars—" "Of course, Father." Indra turned to Newell. "How do you handle them now?" "With lights. It isn't going to be easy. I have my flashlight, and I have the glow of the hypnotizer. I'll have to condition them to signals of different intensity and different rhythms. They exhibit a natural tropism—a tendency to move—toward red light and away from violet. It's doubtless connected with the pinkness of the sun. At any rate, that helps me to control their movements, and at the same time, gives me a chance to combine the light signals with loud vocal commands, condition them to respond to words." "Doesn't that take a great deal of time?" "I should be able to get good results in a few hours." Up above, there was the same roar he had heard the preceding night. The sun glinted on a tiny silvery shape before distance shrank the ship to an undetectable point. "That's the space ship that came last night!" she exclaimed. "They're still cruising around, trying to find Bulkley and me. I hope they don't succeed in spotting the plastex huts too soon." "But surely, now that they know something has happened to the first ship, they won't be so easy to take by surprise!" He shook his head. "I'm not counting on them. They know about the earthquakes that occur here, and if they come across the ruins of the first ship, caught in the ground, they may think at first that the ship was the victim of an accident. Bulkley might even take steps to make them think that. He might, for instance, put up a signal of distress." "Then we don't have too much time!" "Right. The sooner I can get my soldiers trained, the better off we'll be." The minutes, as he was painfully aware, were ticking away all too rapidly. Where on the previous occasion the plant-creatures had seemed to grow with miraculous speed, now they hardly appeared to grow at all. What was that old motto again—a watched pot never boils? Motto proverb, whatever it was—and whatever a pot was—it expressed what was happening now. Watched plants never grew. Somehow, however, they were full size, and then they began to free themselves from the soil. Newell switched on his flashlight, began to coordinate his light signals with spoken commands. It was amazing to see how quickly they learned to obey—or rather, were conditioned to obey, for of learning in any conscious sense there could be none. Quickly he reached the point where he could march them back and forth across the field by the spoken word alone. Up above him, the space ship flashed again. Fortunately, it did not land nearby. Time, he was reminded, was growing short. It was almost with a sense of desperation that he went on with his military drill. He had taught them to march and maneuver. Now he had to teach them to kill. TT WAS NOT human beings that would be their enemies, not even Bulkley. Bulkley he would take care of himself. It was the other plant-creatures, their own kind. That's what soldiers are good for, he thought, to kill each other. They mustn't be too ambitious about killing their superiors. In the days when wars were common, there was a saying that generals died in bed. But General Bulkley wouldn't die peacefully in bed, not if he could help it. For compared with Newell's army, Bulkley's would be at a disadvantage. Bulkley's soldiers had been taught to slaughter human beings, to locate their weak points and attack with a vicious fury that terrified the victims. Put them up against creatures of their own kind, and they'd strike for the heart or throat—and in plants such weak points simply didn't exist. Plants couldn't be terrified, either. True, there were vital points—but Bulkley wasn't enough of a botanist to know exactly where they were on these creatures. But I do know, Newell said to himself, I'll teach my army. I'll teach them to paralyze the centers of motion in the branches that look and act like arms and legs, to cut off the vital metabolic impulses. When I'm through with them, they'll be perfect killers of their own kind. They learned rapidly. It was hardly more than an hour after he had begun this phase of their teaching when Indra suggested, "How will they know which ones to attack? In the actual battle, they might mistake each other for the enemy." "Good idea. We'll have to give them, if not uniforms, at least distinguishing insignia. They can get green creepers from some of the forest trees, tie them around their arms." Indra's father was watching the last-minute preparations, the final checkup before Newell set his amazing army into motion. "There is something vastly impressive about a display of military might," he said. "Would that human beings had as much discipline as these thoughtless vegetable creatures! I have often pondered, sir, that the chief weakness of the younger generation lies in its lack of discipline. Young people are unruly, disrespectful of their elders intolerant of the accumulated wisdom and experience of those who have lived before them. They believe that wisdom begins with them. These plant-soldiers, on the other hand, respect authority and wisdom. They obey, immediately and implicitly." Newell was not listening. His army was ready, to do or die. He, as the general, was now suffering the uncertainty of all leaders of armed men who have great decisions to make. He would have liked to give them further training, but time was growing short. Already he might have delayed too long. He flashed the green signal that meant, "Forward, march." And his army began to march. It was as if a forest had picked itself up, tree by tree, root and branch, and set itself into motion. A phrase from a play in one of the extinct Earth languages sprang into his mind: "Till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane." He remembered that to those old Earthmen the phrase had been a mere bit of trickery, a juggling with words. Now the words had acquired a literal and terrifying meaning., The plant-soldiers moved forward slowly and inexorably. How long, Newell asked himself, till they reached the hut, the hut where Bulkley is lying in wait to slaughter the crew of the new ship? An hour and a half at the earliest. If Bulkley suspects anything, if he's been foresighted enough to spy on what I've been doing, he'll try to stop them, burn them as I did his own soldiers. I'll have to watch out for traps, although I may not recognize them until too late, until after they're already sprung. And I'll have to hope that the ship doesn't suddenly decide to land. ONE, TWO, three, four, one, two, three, four. It's a grim burlesque of a human army, four thousand wooden feet marching to a single rhythm. One, two three, four, one, two, three, four—they keep going remorselessly, tirelessly. No sound of talk to break the rhythm of marching, no irregularities of step to betray the inhuman weakness. It's hard to breathe. I can feel the breath drying my open mouth, I can sense the rapid beating of my heart. A sudden pain—those are knots tying themselves in my stomach, and writhing in the effort to get untied. Guess this is how it felt to go into battle in the old days, when the human race was still young and foolish. This was what it meant to march, under orders, into the jaws of death. Bulkley is armed, Bulkley has weapons that can tear apart both human and plant bodies. Me, I have nothing but my own bare hands to fight with. The hypnotizer is useless now. It has no effect beyond a narrow radius, and there's a danger that it would hypnotize my own soldiers instead of Bulkley's. Can't take the chance of using it, can't risk it. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. Human soldiers don't need hypnotizers, the rhythm itself is hypnotic. Getting used to it. I'm breathing more normally now, 1.1y stomach hurts less, my heart is beating mare regularly. How long have we been marching? A quarter of an hour at most. But now the fear and uncertainty are gone, now I'm ready to face anything. I'm not ready yet to laugh at danger. But it's easier now to pretend that it doesn't exist. What's that noise in back of me? Two people—funny, I was forgetting about people. All I was thinking of was my nonhuman army. Indra and her father, walking a short distance behind me, the old man giving his comments on the younger generation as usual, the girl white-faced and determined. She sees me turn, she's waving to me. Maybe I'd better order her back, command her to stay out of danger. She wouldn't obey, though. And besides, perhaps it's better this way. If my army is victorious there'll be no danger. Bulkley doesn't want to shoot her, and my plant-soldiers will protect her from other enemies. That is, they'll protect her if all goes well, if they succeed in doing as I taught them. If they fail, if the battle goes against us, she'll probably die on the field. The thought of it scares me, but it's better, a lot better, than having her fall into Bulkley's hands. One, two, three, four, one, two. three, four. Another quarter of an hour gone, a third the distance covered. No sign of the ship. Time is still in my favor. One, two, three, four, one, two, three—something's happened to the rhythm. A brown and white object is rising from the ground and throwing itself at my startled body. A wooden arm clutching for my throat, the feel of bark bruising my skin. Smart guy, Bulkley. Hit at the general, leave his army leaderless. Kill the general— Both hands on the wooden arm, try to wrench it away. My strength against the strength of an unfeeling plant-creature's, my muscles of flesh and blood straining for a moment plant-creature's, my muscles of flesh raining—no, that's perspiration that's starting up on my forehead. This is something to sweat about. Deadlock. Neither of us can move. Both straining, motionless Deadlock broken. My own soldiers have remembered their lessons, are applying the training I gave them. They're rallying to my support. The wooden arms of the enemy fall limply away from him, the brown and white form is collapsing. Good soldiers. SLIGHT disorganization, though. Quick light signals to bring my men to a halt. Signal to reform ranks quickly, to march on again. So Bulkley has scouts out to watch for me. I haven't given him too much credit. Bulkley is no fool. But the question still remains: has he taught his own soldiers a defense against the attack of their own kind? Up above, there's something doing. A silvery light, flashing once more. And this time it isn't going away. The great shape is cruising back and forth, slowly, as if on guard. And as it cruises it grows larger. Have to tell Indra. "The ship's coming in for a landing! We'll be too late after all!" "Not unless they lose all their sense of caution. They're not being reckless. Even after they land, they may not leave the ship until after they've done as much investigation as possible by instrument. If we could only get our own soldiers to move faster—" "I don't see how, unless—wait a minute, I've got an idea. If I intensify the stimulus, I may get a stronger response. I'll turn the green signal on as strong as possible, and keep it on." Sweep the green light across the field, back and forth, back and forth. No response. That's what it seems like at first, anyway. But after a time—yes, the army is gradually picking up speed. The rhythm is quickening, quickening. Now it's one-and-two-and-three-and-four, now they're moving ahead at almost twice their former speed. But the ship's coming lower and lower. In another ten minutes it will land. The old man's protesting. I can hear him back there, he's complaining because the quickened pace of the advance is leaving him behind. Another twisted figure is springing at me, but this time I'm not taken by surprise. This time I react quickly, I dodge the dangerous wooden arms and leave it to my soldiers to dispose of the intruder. Whatever else happens, I mustn't delay the main body of troops. The ship is easing down close to the ground. Some one aboard it must have seen the other patrol ship, some one must be curious to know what's happened, for the place of landing is little more than a hundred yards away from the previous wreck. Ten minutes now, ten desperate minutes. Let them stay inside for those ten minutes, and they'll be safe. If only I can warn them in some way Have to run ahead, thread my way through my own soldiers. The rapid pace is telling on me now. Mouth and throat are both dry, and it's hard to breathe. But that won't stop me. I'm in front of the men now, as a brave leader should be. A quarter of a mile away I can see an outer door of the space ship tremble. They're going to come out. "Stay in!" Didn't know I could yell that loud. "Don't come out! Danger!" HAD THEY heard him? Had they picked up his warning on one of their instruments? Or had they been too careless to listen. The door stayed shut. Two figures sprang at him. He tried to twist aside, but other figures cut off his path, and still others blocked his retreat. For a moment they surrounded him, grim and impassive as death. Then his own soldiers reached him. The battle was joined. The field was filled with forms which writhed as if under the blows of a hurricane. What seemed to Newell the most striking feature of the battle was that it was so quiet. Desperate duels were going on in a hundred different places, destruction lay in wait in a hundred different forms —and every one of them silent. These were soldiers that could neither utter shouts to terrify their opponents, nor cry out in pain. At most there was the occasional creak as of branches swaying in the wind, a sharp crack as of a tree trunk splitting in two. The whole scene, so quiet and so terrifying, had the quality of a painted nightmare. A giant sword stroke seemed to slash through the battlefield, cutting across friend and foe alike. One of Bulkley's creatures had fired a real weapon. In the path of the deadly beam, a series of flames broke out. In a matter of moments, the battle field was a blaze of fire. Palls of smoke drifted over the weird struggling forms, making the nightmare even more horrible. A third of the soldiers originally on the field had already fallen, and it seemed to Newell that, among the slaughtered, most were Bulkley's. The training against human beings that the man had given his creatures had been fatally deficient against other creatures like themselves. The doors of the ship had not opened. Now, Newell saw the guns swivel around, prepare to go into action. Apparently the patrol ship captain, unable to tell friend from foe, cared little which of the seemingly hostile creatures he slaughtered. The purple signal of retreat flashed over the battlefield. Newell's soldiers drew back, leaving the open ground to the enemy. A burst of heavy rays came from the ship, swept the field. Within five seconds, only a few scattered soldiers of Bulkley's army were left standing, and these were burning like torches. The battle was over. The ship door slid open. Two men with a gun edged out cautiously, their nostrils wrinkling as they caught a whiff of the acrid smoke-filled air. Behind them came two others, similarly armed. Newell came forward stiffly. He felt exhausted, as if by a day of hard work, although the sun seemed hardly to have moved in the sky. He realized with amazement that the entire slaughter had taken less than half an hour. "Lift your hands," said one of the men sharply. "And come forward to be searched for weapons." Newell would have smiled, if his facial muscles had not been so frozen. "I have no weapons. I'm the man who warned you." "Where's the leader of these creatures?" "Probably running for his life. He hoped to catch you by surprise, as he caught the other ship." "What happened to them?" NEWELL explained, as briefly as he could. Then he was brought into the ship, to explain all over again to the captain. The latter frowned. "He's probably saved a few slaves." "And he may be able to create more. The method isn't too difficult. And he may have found another vial of the chemical which I took from him. He's still dangerous." "He'll have to be caught. You know his habits. And you know this section of the planet. Do you think you can lead us to him?" "I'll try. We'll have to be wary, though. In forests like these, it's easy to walk into an ambush." "Yes. It's even possible to be led into one. I wonder, Newell, just how trustworthy you really are." "Still remembering that I'm supposed to be a criminal, are you? Mr. Hilton and his daughter should be able to testify to my character. They're the ones who were kidnapped from the freighter." "And they're still alive? Good. Where are they?" Where were they? They had been close behind him the last time he had looked—but that had been at least a half hour ago, at the beginning of the battle. Newell felt the blood drain out of his face at the thought that they might have fallen into the desperate Bulkley's hands. "I thought they were near me, Captain. They must have become lost during the battle." "You don't think they might have been taken prisoner by Bulkley, do you?" demanded the Captain sharply. "I'm afraid so, sir." "That's another reason for finding him in a hurry. Newell, you may have a couple of my men, with a heavy gun. I can't spare any more." "I won't need any more, sir. I have my own plant-soldiers. They're trained to attack others of their kind, but not human beings. They'll take care of the creatures that Bulkley still has left, and make it possible for us to get at him." The fatigue of a moment ago was gone. Now fear for Indra and her father seemed to race through his blood, arousing him to new and greater efforts. Where could Bulkley have taken them? Not across the field, not under the guns of the ship. He must have drawn back from the plastex hut, first stripping it of the things he thought he would need most. Chemicals to create new dragon-tooth seeds, tubes to create light, a generator unit. He would not let go of these if he could help it. The two men the Captain had assigned to him were waiting. "Stay with me," he ordered. To his plant-soldiers he flashed a light-signal. "Deploy across the field, then advance." They spread out, moved forward. Smoke drifted across the sky from the still smoldering battlefield, but here, where no fighting had taken place, the ground itself was redolent of leaves and grasses, of small creepers and flowering shrubs. Now we'll see, thought Newell, which general will die in bed and which with his boots on. This time it's the showdown—either Bulkley or me. But he has a powerful threat in what he can do to Indra and her father. Everything looks peaceful now, no sign of danger anywhere. Wonder how many slaves Bulkley has left. Less than a score out of the two thousand he started with, the two thousand I gave him. They won't help him now. And neither will his weapons. I'll tear him apart with my bare hands if I have to. THE WOODEN army came to a sudden confused halt. Before them stood a man—Hilton himself, holding up his hand in warning. Newell exclaimed, "Mr. Hilton? You're safe! But where's Indra?" "That, sir, is what I am about to explain to you. Do not advance, Mr. Newell. And tell your men, if I may be permitted to employ the expression to refer to such obviously nonhuman creatures, to remain in position. I am here, sir, under duress. I am, despite what you conceive to be my freedom to speak to you, a captive." "Then Bulkley's in back of you, holding a gun on you!" "You surmise the situation correctly, Mr. Newell, and state it concisely. In order to complete the picture, however, I must add that my daughter—" his resonant voice faltered for a moment, then picked up again— "my daughter is also being threatened with death." "It won't help him. Do you hear that, Bulkley, wherever you are? Your goose is cooked now. Your only chance is to surrender and plead for mercy." There was a moment's silence. Then the old man said, "He will not answer directly, for fear of revealing his position. He is within earshot, but I myself cannot state precisely where." "That won't help him either." "I devoutly hope not, Mr. Newell, but I must none the less repeat the message he gave me. Either you surrender, or my own life and my daughter's will be forfeit. I am not intimidated, sir, although if not for this unfortunate occurrence, I should still have many years of useful existence before me. I am in my vigorous one hundred and twenties, and my father, as you may not know, lived more than forty years beyond that age, until an unhappy accident—" Newell lost track of the old man's wandering words. He remembered only that he had to save Indra. Somewhere near them, Bulkley was hiding, the girl probably gagged to keep her from crying out. And she was probably being held by one of Bulkley's few remaining slaves, so that she couldn't run away. But where was the group concealed? He caught the thread of the old man's words. "And those, sir, are his terms." "Say that again!" "I thought I had made the conditions clear. Nevertheless, sir, I shall repeat. Mr. Bulkley asks you to throw down your weapons and come forward unarmed—after giving orders to you men to retreat." "He wants me to put myself in his power, is that it?" "That is the situation, Mr. Newell. Otherwise he will murder my daughter and me." Newell shouted, "I have no weapons with me, Bulkley, so I can't throw them down. But that won't stop me from coming at you." "Wait, Mr. Newell. First you must order your men to retreat." "I'll signal them, all right." He put his hand in his pocket and drew out the hypnotizer. The light began to glow, to go through its pulsing sequence of colors. His own plant-creatures stood as if paralyzed. And Bulkley's? They must see it too. Whichever ones were holding Indra could no longer exert their strength. If she sensed their lack of power, and wrenched herself free There was a sudden creaking as of branches swaying from twenty-five yards ahead of them, an abrupt curse of anger and desperation. A small black object suddenly shot into the air—Bulkley's gun. Newell raced toward the scene of struggle, covering the ground in a dozen strides. At one side stood Indra, wrenching at the gag on her mouth, her face scratched, her hair dishevelled. Near her was Bulkley, struggling in the grip of a pair of his own creatures. The brown and white caricatures of faces were familiar. In the fraction of a second which it took Newell to grasp the scene, he recognized the features of the pair he had called Tough-Egg and Scar-Face. ONE LAST choking cry came from Bulkley, and then there was a snap. His head fell forward, his body dropped to the ground. The creatures which had killed turned to run. Newell flashed a quick signal to his own followers, and seconds later the killers were surrounded and their wooden bodies taken apart. Indra was in his arms. He held her tight, disregarding the two men the Captain had sent along with him. Finally he turned to them. "Thanks for your offer to be of help, gentlemen, but I have no further need of you." One of them grinned. "I can see that." "You can report to the Captain. Both of you." They started on their way back. Indra shuddered in his arms. "Toward the end Bulkley was out of his mind, completely beyond control. He blamed you for upsetting all his plans. He wanted nothing but to kill you." "He did his best." "I tried to think of a way to stop him, but I was helpless. Then, when you started the hypnotizer going, I remembered what you had told me of its previous effect on these creatures, and was able to wrench myself free. Bulkly tried to turn the gun on me, but he was too close, and I was able to disarm him, using another jiu jitsu method. He rushed me when he realized I was getting away, and then I threw him over my head, and he landed on the creatures nearby. That's what set them off, and made them turn on him." "All those creatures he taught to kill human beings are dangerous. They'll have to be destroyed." "Yes, I know. But they seem so human. It will be like murder." "It won't be. They feel nothing." He went on slowly, "That may change, of course. As they learn more and more, they may develop some kind of genuine consciousness of the world around them. They may develop feelings. And then they'll offer a real problem." "The ones you trained aren't harmful to us. And they could be useful." "That's why I first invented them. To be useful. I thought I could show them to the authorities, prove I was capable of doing good work, and win back my rights as a citizen. This planet is dangerous to human beings. But plants can live here, and so could creatures descended from plants. They could build it up, make the planet part of an intergalactic system." She nodded, "You're right." "I think that when I explain all that, and the authorities realize what I've done here, and how Bulkley has tried to turn my work to vicious purposes, I'll have no trouble in getting them to reopen the original case, and convince them of my innocence of crime." "And my father and I can continue with the vacation that Bulkley interrupted." "Your father is getting too old to travel. You need another companion. And it won't be a vacation. It'll be more like a honeymoon. In fact, it will be one." It was at that moment that a sonorous voice came to them. "I have been cogitating, Mr. Newell, and my meditations concern the ethical and sociological aspects of the problems involved in the existence of these plant-creatures. Recalling the many experiences with strange and unexpected forms of life on many galaxies—" Newell bit back an expression of extreme annoyance. Indra said sweetly "Father!" "Look at this, Father!" She held up the hypnotizer that the old man himself had constructed. The light began to glow and pulse. A glazed look came into the eyes of the man whom millions of listeners and viewers knew as Dr. Hypno. The facial muscles relaxed, the eyes stared blankly. "He hasn't the slightest idea of what's going on in front of his nose," said Indra demurely. Which was a good thing, thought Newell, as he stretched out his hungry arms. THE END THE HATERS BY WILLIAM MORRISON They flung themselves across light years of space to show the world their hatred and contempt. And out among the stars, they learned at last what hatred could really mean to them and what they hated! "We'll show them," said Kerman. Grayson didn't answer. Kerman was more than half crazy, and he had been talking about showing them ever since coming on board. Grayson had got used to him, just as he had got used to all the others. After all, you couldn't expect to hire a crew that was exactly normal, not for a trip like this. You simply picked up what you could get and took these characters in your' stride, and when they started talking in their different peculiar ways, you didn't pay attention. Still, if ever Kerman's remark had been appropriate, it was at a time like this. Here was a planet that would everything they were looking for. And nobody to stop them from taking it. McGant, who acted as first mate, came over to him and said, "We're all set to land, Captain." "Hold off for awhile," replied Grayson. "I'm checking our observations." "There's nothing to check," commented McGant sourly. "Oxygen, temperature, gravity; air presssure—everything's in the right range. Radioactivity's a little high, but that's the way we want it. Not enough to hurt, but high enough to be promising." "I'm not sure about the inhabitants," Grayson said. McGant looked at him oddly. You didn't get respect from a crew like this, thought Grayson. Some were slavish, but in general you were lucky if you got grudging obedience, and didn't have to dodge a knife in the back. McGant, now, was not exactly half crazy, but he was a good quarter of the way gone. And here he was looking at Grayson as if he considered the latter the one who was weak in the head. Maybe he had something there at that, thought Grayson. "There's no danger from them," said McGant. "Only one intelligent species, and not many specimens of them around. And they're still in the ape-man stage." "I'm not so sure." "By Pluto, Captain, it's obvious enough. Not a building, not a boat, not a canal in the place. No sign that they've ever heard of the use of tools. No sign that they grow their own plant food or use weapons to kill their prey. What more do you want of them, an I. Q. test?" "That would help," said Grayson. "For lack of it, I'm taking another look at some of these telescopic films we made." "I've gone through them. They don't show any danger." "I tend to agree with you. But it doesn't pay to be careless." "Anything you say, Captain," replied McGant in a respectful voice, managing to convey his contempt by facial expression alone. "Somebody on every ship has to be careful, just as somebody has to be the ship's clown. But I'll lay two to one that you're only wasting our time. An hour from now we'll be coming in for the landing we should be making right now." "I don't doubt it," returned Grayson coldly, He didn't like that remark about the clown. "And then, by Pluto, we'll start collecting the stuff. We'll, show the dirty so-and-so's, Captain." "You have restricted objectives," said Grayson. McGant's dirty so-and-so's, of course, were the inhabitants of his native Mars. Kerman's "them" were the officers of the Interplanetary Transport Service, who had fired him for perfectly justifiable reasons. Grayson himself wasn't so petty. The "them" that he was going to show was nothing less than the entire human race. He studied the films, running them through three more times, looking for any clue that might hint at an advanced but concealed state of civilization, for any sign that the intelligence of the highest race, the A-race, was above what he called the ape-man stage. There was nothing. The intelligent ones were not particularly impressive-looking. They were about five feet high, rather slender in build, and not at all humanoid in appearance. They looked like walking lizards, which they were not. Their jaws protruded and their foreheads receded, as if they relied more upon their teeth than upon their brains. And Grayson had learned that in an enemy you had to fear brains more than anything else. Completely sane or not, McGant was right. After an hour, Grayson gave the signal, and the ship spiralled in for a landing. It settled down on a smooth grassy plot that was red and gray with small growing plants. They got out, their weapons ready, and looked around them. There was nothing startling, and Grayson wondered why he couldn't shake off the feeling of danger. The plants were unusual, of course, but no more unusual than those of a planet like Venus, for instance. Tall gray trees, red and gray bushes, blue grass. They were fixed where they grew, as plants should be, and Grayson saw no reason to fear them. Still, tests had to be made. A couple of the men, directed by McGant, were already gathering samples to make them. They took specimens of the air, the soil, they took the leaves and bark of different plants. In the ship itself, Stratton, the biochemist, who was a very kindly and gentle person except when he took a notion that the Universe was persecuting him, fed the materials through the electrono-chemical tester system. This read off their important characteristics in no more than the time that a human analyst would have taken to focus a microscope. "No poisons and no very bad skin irritants," he reported, "except on one of the larger species of trees, and I don't think there'll be much trouble, Captain, in getting an antitoxin to control that. Some of the grasses produce mild allergens, but our drugs should handle them." No danger from that source then. As for the animals—Grayson heard the click of a gun going off, and saw a blue animal leap out of the grass and lie still. Kerman and a couple of others were assembling specimens of the larger species. Another crew was collecting the planetary equivalent of insects. Soon they would get together numerous representative types of animal life, study how the creatures reacted, find out how easy they were to kill. Another electronic analyzer would dissect them and report all their important characteristics to the waiting men. An hour later, the summarized reports began to come in. By the end of the afternoon, a hundred small species and a dozen of the larger ones had been analyzed. There was nothing to be afraid of. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew had not been idle. Under Grayson's direct orders, a dozen of them were scouting at low levels in their one-man helicopters. If the planet was as rich in the different metals as it seemed to be, they should have located enough ores to make fortunes for the entire crew in a single day of mining. When the reports began to come in over the radio, Grayson knew that he was right. Their fortunes would be made. "We'll show them," grinned Kerman, almost drooling at the idea of the money he was going to have. This time Grayson nodded. He dreamed of what the money would do for him, and the bitter smile he habitually wore slowly hardened. What a showing that was going to be. They operated on a twenty-four hour day, although the period of rotation of the planet was closer to thirty. It was still dark when the morning wake-up bell out and began to get the mining sounded, and the men tumbled machinery ready for operation. A technician, relatively sane but surly, tested the electron filters in banks, replaced one that was faulty, gave the mechanical parts a quick once-over, and reported, "Shipshape, Captain." "Start mining." Grayson had made a map, showing the different ore-rich areas listed in the preceding day's explorations. He pointed out Area 1 and said, "Try that first." The man nodded. "Could use more equipment." "We'll get along this trip. And next trip we'll have enough equipment to go ten times as fast." The 'copter with the mining group flew into the surrounding darkness, its glowlights lighting up the trees for a distance of a thousand feet ahead. Things were settling down to a routine, thought Grayson. Everything quiet, everything in order. Absolutely no danger. McGant came out of the inside of the ship and grinned at him. "No trouble, Captain?" "None so far." "It's like I expected. That A-race isn't dangerous at all. And as for brains—well, they've got just enough to keep out of our way." "We didn't run across any yesterday?" "There don't seem to be many around. One of the men came across a single specimen. He shot at it, but the thing was quite a way off, and he missed." "Tell the men not to kill them. We'll see if we can tame them and get some use out of them." But he wasn't actually counting on that. It was enough, he told himself, to know that the race was harmless. From now on, the only thing that counted was the rate at which the metal could be mined and brought to the ship. All the same, he experienced a feeling of uneasiness later, when he overheard two of the men talking. One of them was jeering, "Don't tell me you missed him, Fernald. Why, I thought you could hit a target with that gun of yours from ten miles away." "I can. But I'm not used to the air here, and my range-finder doesn't work the way it does on Earth or Mars." Then the two men became aware that Grayson was near them, and they slouched to attention and saluted sloppily. What did the man miss? Grayson asked himself. An animal at which he was shooting, of course. But what sort of animal? One of the A-race? Discipline was bad enough without letting the men know that he had overheard part of their conversation and wanted to hear the rest of it. He passed by them, and noticed that they resumed talking in low voices when he was out of earshot. The incident annoyed him, and the next day he himself went out with one of the hunting parties. The animals had learned caution now, and were in no hurry to show themselves. One of the men had to flush them out of their hiding places with a strong ultrasonic beam, which he swept in all directions, and even then they moved so swiftly that they were not easy to kill. By the time you aimed at them they had changed color and taken refuge in their next hideout. And then you had to go through the whole process all over again. It was an hour before Grayson himself got a shot. When he did let loose finally it was at a small lizard-like animal only a foot high that came placidly out of a burrow thirty feet away and stood there, as if oblivious of the irritation of the ultrasonic beam, examining the men with interest. Grayson's blast had more power in it than he would have wanted to use on so small a creature. It caught the lizard full in the middle, and knocked it back. For a moment Grayson was afraid that he had torn the thing to pieces. He hadn't. As he watched in amazement, the animal picked itself up, completely unhurt, and moved slowly into its burrow again. One of the men laughed uneasily. "You didn't catch it head on, Captain. You just sideswiped it." Grayson said firmly, "I hit it head on." "Besides," said another of the men, "even a glancing shot with that much power should have killed it." "It should have," agreed Grayson. "Has anybody here killed one of these things before?" "I aimed at one yesterday, Captain, but I missed." It was Fernald who spoke. Captain Grayson said sharply, "Sure you missed?" "Not now I ain't, Captain. But I thought so at the time." "Prentiss," said Grayson, "flush that thing out with the ultrasonic beam again. I want another look at it." The ultrasonic beam rose to full power. Nothing came out of the burrow. Grayson's forehead was damp. He said, "Somebody toss a grenade down there. That should get it out, in pieces if need be." They stepped back and Fernald tossed the grenade. Fernald liked to toss grenades. The clumps of dirt shot up and out in all directions, and left a hollow a dozen feet across. At the bottom of the hollow they could see the small lizard looking up at them. It seemed annoyed that its privacy had been disturbed, but otherwise not particularly upset. Grayson stared at it more, closely than before. The thing helped him by standing up on its hind legs so that he could get a better look at it. The jaws protruded, the forehead receded. It looked like al small-scale, slightly altered edition of the members of the A-race. "Probably an earlier and smaller form," he thought. "It must have the same evolutionary relation to the A-race as monkeys have to men." The thing looked at him and opened its jaws. Grayson heard the thinnest of squeaks. Most of the sound, he realized, must be in the ultrasonic range. Another small lizard popped out of a burrow close by; and disregarding the presence of the men a couple of dozen feet away, the two things held a squeaky conversation. Then both turned and moved calmly into the second burrow. "Want me to open that one too?" asked Fernald eagerly. "Don't bother." Fernald was too anxious. Better keep him under control, or he'd let his passion for throwing grenades g the better of him. "I got something a little better than a grenade, Captain," said one of the other men. "Midget-sized nuclear bomb. We'll have to back up, though, if we want to use it." "We'll try that," said Grayson. The man moved cautiously to the burrow and planted the bomb. Then they all moved back. When the bomb went off, the explosion could be felt a half mile away. Dirt and rocks flew into the air, and with them the two small lizard things. When the men approached once more, the two beasts had their heads together again, squeaking away as before. Apparently they had been unharmed by the explosion. Grayson looked at his men and they looked back at him, and nobody spoke. Finally, Fernald, now no longer fingering a grenade, suggested, "There seems to be nothin' much we can do to those things, Captain. And it would be too bad if they came after us. Maybe we better leave them alone." "I'm afraid we'd better. Back to the ship, everyone." He spoke calmly, but inside he wasn't at all calm. He had been right from the first, there was danger here, terrible danger. So far, by some miracle, the little lizards had shown no inclination to harm them. But what if the bombing of their burrows had aroused their anger? The next day he learned that the small lizards were not invulnerable. They had set a trap a half mile from the ship, and when the alarm went off, Captain Grayson looked at the visor to see what he had caught. It was a big lizard this time, a member of the A-race. The thing stood on its hind legs within the smooth hard walls of transparent metal and gazed around it, as if wondering what had happened. It made no sudden motion, showed no sign of panic. It simply examined the situation in what seemed to Grayson a very human way. Something moved at the edge of the visor screen, and Grayson perceived that a small lizard was inspecting its larger relative through the transparent metal wall. Half a dozen additional small lizards joined the first, and for a few seconds they stared placidly at the large creature inside the trap. Then the large one acted. Its paws swiped at the metal wall, and the wall tore. A second later the large one was out of the trap, attacking the small creatures which surrounded it. The walls must have caved in completely then, for the visor screen blanked out. Grayson swore in frustration, and then barked, "McGant, Fernald! Get a couple of men with midget nuclear bombs and come with me! I want to see what's going on there!" Two minutes later they were in a 'copter, flying over the place where the broken remains of the trap lay. McGant looked out and said, "All quiet now, Captain." "We'll land and look around. You fellows keep your bombs ready for use. They don't seem to hurt the beasts, but at least they'll blow them out of the way." As they eased the 'copter off the ground, Grayson sprang out and ran over to what seemed to be a torn rag. It was what was left of one of the small lizards. He stared at it in disbelief for a moment, aware that his heart was pounding with fear. He found it hard to believe. Fernald said gloomily, "We couldn't make a dent on that thing, Captain, but the big one seems to have torn it to pieces in no time at all. Absolutely no time at all." "What'll happen to us if the big one comes after us?" asked McGant. Grayson shook his head. "Better not talk about it. So far we've been lucky enough to have it avoid us. God help us if it ever acquires a fondness for our company," he told them. Fernald pointed. "Here's another little one, dead as a door nail. Looks like it's been burned." The skin seemed to have been scorched. Grayson said, "That must be one of the pair we caught with our midget nuclear, bomb." "So the bomb had an effect after all," observed McGant. "Not enough. If we had a full sized one—" "Which we haven't, Captain.' "Which we haven't. But if we had, we might protect ourselves. As it is—" He hesitated. "As it is, we're getting off this planet." "No, Captain!" exclaimed McGant. "By Pluto, we were all going to get rich here and go back and show them. You can't go off now, leaving all that valuable metal untouched." Grayson's lips tightened. "In the 'copter, you fools," he ordered. "We're going back to the ship, and once we get there we're leaving the planet. If you don't like the idea, McGant, you can stay here with these lizard beasts. And you can keep any man who wants to stay here with you." The others shook their heads and Fernald spoke for them "Not us, Captain. Not after what we've seen them do." The flight back to the ship was made in swift silence. Grayson got out and saw Kerman gaping foolishly at him. "All quiet, Kerman?" "All quiet, Captain." "Get back on the ship. Have Sparks send out a message recalling all reconnaissance and mining crews. We're leaving in fifteen minutes. Anybody not on board in that time stays behind on this planet." He ran down the corridor and threw open the door to his office. In the doorway he stood as if paralyzed. One of the A-beasts was there near his desk, staring at him. A hole torn in the metal floor showed how the beast had entered. His hand swung to the weapon at his belt and then dropped away. Explosive weapons were useless. The only thing that could save him was his head, his human brain, the great brain of a race which had set out to conquer the universe. A crewman came running down the corridor to him and shouted, "Captain! They've torn a hole in the side! And they're ripping out the engine!" Another A-beast suddenly opened the storeroom door and looked out at him. It was at this moment that Grayson almost realized the full hopelessness of their situation. But not quite. He knew that the ship could not take off without extensive repairs, and that he and the other crew members were prisoners at the mercy of the A-race. What he did not realize was the most important fact of all. There came the burst of an explosion from an adjoining corridor, then screams of panic. There must have been at least half a dozen guns blasting, thought Grayson. All, he knew, were useless, completely useless. Not one of them could harm the big lizard-like things. They could only excite them, enrage them, inspire them to revenge. He peered around the corner and saw what was happening. Very gently, two of the A-race were advancing upon a dozen cowering crew members. Like nurses removing dangerous toys from children who might hurt themselves, they were taking away the guns and grenades which the latter had been using. It was at that moment that the full truth burst upon Grayson. The A-beasts were not averse to killing. The way in which one of them had slaughtered the smaller creatures of his own planet showed that. If they were caring for the human beings it was for one reason alone—that the human beings were valuable to them, that the human beings knew things that they needed to know. And if they could acquire knowledge from the human beings, that meant that they themselves were intelligent, highly intelligent. That was the horrible truth, the stupendous danger that paralyzed Grayson's mind. His knees buckled under him, and he sank back against a wall and gasped for breath. For the first time since he had been released from prison, his fear for the human race was so great that he forgot his hatred of it. The A-beasts were very intelligent jailers. To prevent the human beings from escaping they had removed the 'copter engines and retired, leaving the prisoners both their quarters and the weapons they needed to protect themselves against lower beasts. In addition, as protection against the smaller lizards against which the weapons had proved so useless, they had thoughtfully left two of their own kind as guards. The guards picked out Grayson and Stratton, the biochemist, herded them gently into the captain's office, and began to question them. They pointed to different objects and waited to hear the names. Very obediently, Captain Grayson began to teach them the human language. "Shrewd," he told himself, "very shrewd. They've picked us two as the most intelligent of the entire ship. They figured we'd make the best teachers. Well, barring a touch of insanity, we're not bad." The other man seemed to have been frightened out of his delusions of persecution. No delusions at this moment, thought Grayson, just the persecution itself. Stratton said nervously, "They have a good memory, Captain. They repeat the words we give them without making a mistake." In fact, the A-creatures were learning to speak at a rapid rate. Grayson could not imagine himself learning their language with such speed and accuracy. At the end of three days they could communicate-with the human beings with a fair degree of fluency. One of the first questions they asked was further evidence of their shrewdness. "Why do you have such men?" Stratton, with his delusions, naturally misunderstood. He began to explain, "All the men have different duties. One plots the ship's course, one takes charge of the engines—" The A-beast said, "That is not what is meant." Grayson nodded. "I think understand. You want to know why I have such a peculiar crew. But first, why do you think the men are peculiar?" "There is not sufficient regularity. We do not know what the human norm is. But we do know that this cannot be a normal sample. There is too great a variety of behavior. Some are dull and apathetic, like Kerman, some are excitable, like McGant. There is both cowardice and reckless indifference to loss of life. Some obey slavishly, others carry out orders only as a last resort." "A fine crew, aren't we?" agreed Grayson bitterly. "But for a trip like this, the bunch I picked was the best to be found." "They are irrational. They hate. And they act upon their hatred." "Yes, we hate. That is the one thing we have in common! McGant hates his native planet, which banished him for crimes he had committed. Kerman hates the Interplanetary Transport Service, which fired him for petty thievery. Fernald hates the Courts of Justice, which convicted his father of taking bribes. Some hate for reasons which exist in their twisted minds only. Others, like me, have good reason for hating the entire human race." The two A-creatures exchanged glances. Grayson said angrily, "Don't look superior. If you knew what they did to me, you'd understand. I was convicted for a murder I didn't commit. I was sent to a penal colony to be reconditioned. After I had served ten years—the full period—they discovered the real murderer, who was by that time on his deathbed, and died thumbing his nose at them. "Ten years out of my life—think of it!" His voice choked with rage as he recalled his wrongs. "The most precious ten years. They couldn't make it up to me, of course, but the thing was that they didn't even try. They didn't begin to try. They simply informed me that they'd note the correction in my dossier, and that I could go about my business as before, with no stain on my record." He hadn't meant to speak so freely, but now that he had listeners, the temptation to go on was irresistible. And in the back of his mind was another reason, a reason only half formed. He would hold nothing back. Nothing, except— "They forgot that they had reconditioned me. When I entered the colony I was a reasonably normal human being. When I left it, I was—as you see me now. I hated every one. Almost the first thing I did was to square the account a bit. I had paid the customary ten years for a human life, paid it in advance. I took what was coming to me by killing the most brutal of the guards. I felt better then, but I still hated people. "While I was in the penal colony, the intergalactic drive had been discovered. But its use was prohibited indefinitely. The authorities reasoned that the other galaxies might be full of unknown dangers, and they didn't want to bring any of them down upon the Solar System: Intergalactic exploration was forbidden to all ships but official Government vessels, which were to be especially trained to take the necessary precautions." He grinned unpleasantly. "Personally I didn't give a damn whether I brought danger down upon the Solar System or not. All I knew was that there were hundreds of thousands of planets yet unexplored, and that they probably contained enough in raw materials to make fortunes for everybody in the first few thousand crews to explore them. I started recruiting a crew as fast as I could. "As it turned out, I couldn't get even ordinary criminals to join up with me. They had too much of a sense of human responsibility, too much conscience. That's why I had to fall back on this outfit of haters. With them—and with me—it's every man for himself, and devil take the hindmost." "That was what we wished to know." Again the two A-creatures exchanged glances, and Grayson thought he detected doubt. He had been telling the truth, for reasons of his own, of course, but the truth none the less. He said harshly, "If you don't believe me, ask the others. They'll tell you whether or not I'm lying. There's only one thing to add. That is, that we hadn't counted on coming across a race like yours. Now we'll never get back to our native planet to enjoy the wealth we found." If he could only be sure of that! But perhaps they would get back. There was a good possibility. The ship's engines hadn't been destroyed, they had merely been removed. Perhaps the crew would yet return to the System and to the people they had so bitterly hated. "We shall repair your ship. Perhaps we shall build several others like it. And you will lead us back." It was as he had feared. Grayson stared at the two creatures and had a moment of panic. He hadn't told them that he had changed his mind about hating the human race. He hadn't told them that a man could think he knew his own mind, knew his own dearest wish—and when face to face with its realization, perceive that he knew nothing of the sort. That was one thing he mustn't tell. Nor must he tell them that he was terrified now at the nightmare of what would happen when such almost invulnerable creatures descended upon the weak things that called themselves "men." And for a moment he was afraid that they would read his mind. That, however, was absurd. If they could do that, they would never have bothered to ask him so many questions. His thoughts were his own—up to the point where his own cowardice would force him to reveal them. But if they could not read his mind in the literal' sense, they could at least judge what he was thinking. One of the A-creatures said, "You are wondering about us. We have no machinery such as fills your ship, we lack much of your science. How can we dream of building another ship?" "Yes, I'm wondering. I don't understand your race in the least." "We have only recently begun to understand ourselves." The creature said softly, "We are a young race. Those that look like us but are so much smaller, like the creatures you call lizards—those are our ancestors." "I thought there was a relationship. But it doesn't make sense. Those small ones," objected Grayson, "are the only creatures we have seen you destroy." "They are the only ones we have to fear," returned the other. Not the only ones, thought Grayson. You have us—me. Yes, I hated the human race for what it did to me. It was a blind, reasoning hate, and some of its members deserved part of what I felt—but no one hurt me intentionally, no one but the murderer and the guard I killed, and both of these were themselves enemies of humanity. Now that I've got all that bitter stuff off my chest, I can see it more clearly, but I can realize too that even at my worst, I never intended to destroy my own kind. I might have subjected it carelessly to danger, just as a man will subject himself when he is overconfident of his own ability and careless of his own life. I wanted people to realize that I had been unjustly treated, I wanted them to fear my revenge. I would have come back with millions and lorded it over those who had harmed me, used my money to punish those in power who had treated me as a mere number on the list of prisoners. But I never had any intention of bringing disaster to the System. And that is what I have done—what I shall have done in discovering you and your kind, unless I can stop you. I have no weapon now but my mind, my human mind which you unfortunately cannot read. And this mind I must use to the utmost to discover your weakness, to prevent you from fastening yourself upon my people and enslaving them, as I am afraid you will do if you attack before they are warned. The A-beast said, "These small ancestors of ours are thoughtless, stupid. In the struggle for life upon this planet, however, they have had one advantage. In appearance they seem, as we do, little out of the ordinary. But no ordinary weapon can harm them, much less, destroy them. They do not even die of old age. They die only when they destroy each other. "They must have been formed originally by some tremendous mutation of the germ plasm. Once in existence, they spread rapidly among creatures who by comparison were of a completely lower order of strength. It was not until they had covered the entire land surface of the planet that they began to come into serious conflict with each other, and thus to limit their own numbers. "A few hundred thousand years back, our own race first arose. It was distinguished at first only by its size. It had the same near-invulnerability and the same lack of intelligence. "At first it was only a subspecies of the dominant, smaller race. But creature against creature, the smaller ones were helpless to combat it, and it grew in numbers. But the struggle for survival was a desperate one. Its members had to learn to band together, to hunt their enemies systematically and relentlessly. We learned to know, each of us, his own strength. We learned to recognize against what odds we could win and against what odds we must lose, and we developed our original language to a level that would permit us to work together. "Thus we became the intelligent race you see today. In all this, however, we had no need to master nature as your own race has done. No ordinary enemy could hurt us, no weapon penetrate our bodies. There were no perils of nature against which we needed protection. Our only enemies were the smaller race; these we had begun to conquer by teeth and claws. "In the past few years, our intelligence has turned the tide definitely in our favor. And this same intelligence has enabled us to foresee that in the future we shall no longer be limited to the few square miles of land we now inhabit. In a few years, the entire planet will be ours. What then? We do not die when there is insufficient food, but we cease to grow and propagate. Shall our race be brought to a standstill for lack of space in which to expand? "We had just begun to consider our problem when your ship arrived. You have given us the answer. Other planets, other galaxies would provide us with new homes. There remained only one question. Could we build such a ship as yours to conquer space? "We studied you and your men and arrived at the conclusion that individual for individual we were immensely superior to you. Whatever you could do, we could do with greater ease. But you have a long start on us. We have therefore been careful to harm no one, even the least among you, you who have knowledge that we may use. "On all the planets we conquer, we shall learn. It will not be long before we acquire the knowledge you yourself have gained over the course of your entire history." And then—Grayson shrugged. "So long as it takes more than my lifetime, that is a matter of indifference to me." He had had a great deal of experience in concealing his true feelings, and these creatures had known human beings for only a short time. Nevertheless he had a ghastly fear that they would see through him, that they would realize that he was lying, and had spoken so freely of his hate for the human race only because he no longer hated. These creatures had brains that were superior, he thought desperately. They had learned the human tongue in a few days, but he had not the slightest idea of their own language. They were as grown men to children. And could a child successfuly deceive a grown man in so important a matter? He might, thought Grayson. Once in a while he might. If he pretended selfish indifference to anything but his own personal interests, if he pretended complete and unquestioning obedience, he might. In the days that followed he realized that even his crew members, haters of their own kind though they were, felt guilty at the thought of their great betrayal. Among others, Kerman came to him and said uneasily, "Say, Captain, these lizards want us to tell them everything we know." "You don't know much, Kerman," Grayson said. "Yes, but Captain, there are some things—" "Do as they want," said Grayson, knowing that his own attitude would be reflected in the more revealing attitude of the crewmen. "Don't volunteer information because that would be showing disrespect. But don't hold back when they ask you." "But, gosh, Captain, they're lizards and we're people. And if they learn how to handle the ship, and make ships of their own—" "What do we care? The only thing we're interested in is keeping alive, isn't it?" Kerman nodded uncertainly. "In that case, there's only one thing to do. Tell them what they want to know. Keep on the good side of them." "Okay, Captain," said Kerman resignedly. "Now, they've been asking about all this metal we got stored on the ship. They figure that if we want it, it's valuable to them too. They want us to show them how to get more." "Show them. I thought I heard you yourself say, Kerman, that we'll show them." Kerman grinned shamefacedly. "I didn't mean it that way, Captain. I meant the people back in the System. But we'll show these lizards too." We make good slaves, thought Grayson, perfect slaves. Fortunately there is a bit of critical information that most of the men don't usually recall. I'll have to warn one or two of the technicians though, not to pass it on. As for the rest, we toil away with hand and brain, and day by day the A-race is learning most of the precious knowledge we have acquired, it is learning to work the machinery we have so painfully built. An invulnerable race can't be stopped, he told himself bitterly, it can't be harmed, and it can't be resisted. You can only let them pick the treasures of your mind and take charge of the material treasures you came here to gather. Wonder if the human race will appreciate what I'm up against, he thought. Of course it will never know, but I wonder if it would appreciate if it did know. Not likely. More likely every last one of them would damn me for what I've done. And they'd be right. I hated them, and I'm paying for my hatred. Strange that now I hate the A-race more. Here it is, concentrated in a few square miles around the ship, hemmed in by enemies on its own planet, prepared to play the role of galaxy-conqueror. If only there were time for a warning There wasn't. There was no time to spread the news, and even if there had been, there would have been no time for a battle cruiser to arrive quickly enough to drop its atomic bomb and wipe out the core of the A-race. Of course, if such a bomb could have been dropped—there would be the end of the ship that served the A-race as model, of the human beings who served them as teachers. Those of the A-race who had already acquired human knowledge would also be wiped out with them, and the scattered members left on the outposts would probably be helpless against the onslaughts of their smaller relatives. A big if, an impossible if. Was it, though? If you toiled faithfully, if you got your men to work hard, and helped them concentrate and purify the precious metal, and collect it all in one spot, watching the quantity grow and grow, until— He called his men together and they stood there silent. There they were, the surly ones, the, crazy ones, all those who had felt persecuted, and hated their own kind. "Men," he said, "you've been taking it too easy. Remember, the sooner we do what these lizards want, the sooner we go back to our own System." A lie, of course. They would never go back. "I want you to stop loafing and get a move on." "And turn the System over to these lizards? I'll see them in hell first. And you with them, Captain, you with them. Boys—" "All right, boys," said Grayson genially. "Back to work. And remember, speed it up now." And now the layers of metal bars filled a small chamber in the ship, and the precious hoard he had been so helpfully collecting was almost complete. Three heaps with a space in the center they were now, three heaps, each below the critical stage, but already warm with the neutrons streaming through their slowly disintegrating atoms. He held the last bar of U235 in his hand, and he knew that he bad only to place it in the spot reserved for it to make the mass exceed the critical size, to turn it into a nuclear bomb, to make it explode suddenly in an atomic blast whose fierceness would vaporize ship and slaves and masters with a roar never before heard or imagined on this planet. His face wore almost the same happy smile that had once amused him on Kerman's face. "We'll show them," he said cheerfully. "We'll show them." But it was a smile without hatred. He put the bar into place, and everything was gone at once. Where there had been a ship and hatred there was now only a vast hollow in the molten ground. The Weather on Mercury Anyone mad enough (1) to land on that crazy world (2) in order to rescue that screwball explorer should (3) have his head examined. By WILLIAM MORRISON Illustrated by VIDMER I The first thing McKracken did was to shoot a Mercurian native. But then McKracken, although he had powerful muscles, was never supposed to be very strong in the head. The expedition was in the Twilight Zone, naturally, at the time. Without special clothing, which no one had, both the perpetual night of the Cold Side and the furnace heat of the Hot Side were out of the question. The Twilight Zone at this point was about forty miles wide, and the Astrolight had been skillfully brought down smack in the middle of it. Two hours after the landing, having ascertained that the air was as breathable as Kalinoff had reported, McCracken went out and aimed his explosive bullet at the Mercurian. If it hadn't been for Carvalho, who accompanied him, the rest of the group would have known nothing of the incident. It was Carvalho who reported what had happened to Lamoureux, captain of the expedition. McCracken, of course, burst into vigorous denials that he had shot a native. "You don't think I'd be fool enough to go around looking for trouble, do you?" LAMOUREUX thought he would, but didn't say so. "You did shoot at something. We heard the report." "I tried to hit a dangerous bird." "What sort of bird was it?" "Kind of like a penguin, I'd say, but with a broader face. No bill to speak of—" "Then don't speak of it," snapped Lamoureux. "Did you score a hit?" "I think the explosion caught it in the shoulder. It got away." "Thank God for small favors," said Lamoureux. "That bird, you pigeon-brain, was a Mercurian. How do you expect intelligent inhabitants of other planets to look? Like you? They'd die of mortification." "Damn it, how was I to know?" "I told you not to shoot unless you were attacked." Lamoureux scowled. "Kalinoff is somewhere in the Twilight Zone and we were supposed to find him with the help of the Mercurians. It may interest you to know that, while you were out at target practice, some of them came around here and began to behave as if they wanted to be friendly. Then they suddenly disappeared. I imagine they got news of what you had done. A fat lot of help they'll give us now." "We'll run across Kalinoff without them," said McCracken confidently. Carvalho, who had a habit of looking for the dark side of every situation, and finding it, suggested, "Suppose the Mercurians attack us?" McCracken said, "They haven't any weapons." "How do you know?" "Kalinoff didn't mention any." Lamoureux emitted a laugh that sounded like an angry bark. "Kalinoff wouldn't know. He was friendly with them. He did report that they were an intelligent race. It'll be too bad if they use their intelligence against us." McCracken thrust out his jaw. There was a streak of stubbornness in him, and he was not going to take too many dirty cracks lying down. He growled, "I think you're making a mountain out of an anthill." "Molehill," corrected Lamoureux. "Whatever it is. What if Kalinoff did say the Mercurians would help us? You can't take his word for it. Everybody knows what Kalinoff is." Lamoureux frowned. "Kalinoff is a great man and a great explorer." "They call him the interplanetary screwball." "Not on this expedition, they don't, McCracken. You will please keep a civil tongue in your head." "There's nothing wrong in what I'm saying. Kalinoff is a screwball, and you know it, Captain. He's always playing practical jokes. Look at how he got that Martian senator into the same cage with a moon-snake, and locked the door on him. The senator had a fit. How was he to know the snake was harmless?" "You don't think Kalinoff would play jokes when his own life was at stake, do you?" "Once a screwball," insisted McCracken firmly, "always a screwball." Lamoureux lost patience. "Once an idiot, always an idiot. Get over to the ship and help with the unpacking. And remember, if we don't find Kalinoff, it'll be your fault, and God help you." HAVING, he hoped, left McCracken feeling properly ashamed of himself, Lamoureux walked away. The responsibility was beginning to weigh him down. The other nineteen men in the expedition thought they were merely trying to rescue an intrepid explorer for the sake of human life, which was supposed to be sacred. They didn't know that, behind his screwball surface, Kalinoff was as shrewd as they came. He had made some valuable discoveries—and promptly staked out a claim to them. He had run across large quantities of stable isotopes of metals whose atomic numbers ranged from 95 to 110. These had remarkable and useful properties. They were, to begin with, of unusual value as catalysts in chemical reactions. For example, element 99, in the presence of air, was a more powerful oxidizing agent than platinum or palladium was a reducing agent, in the presence of hydrogen. And the oxidations could be controlled beautifully, could be made to affect almost any part of a complicated organic molecule at a time. Element 99 was recoverable, and could be used again and again. A few hundred grams of it alone might very well pay for the cost of the entire expedition. Add the value of a few kilos of elements 101 to 110, and Kalinoff had discovered enough to make him and a few other people rich for life. Lamoureux wanted to be one of those other people. He had three kids he wanted to send through Lunar Tech; he had a wife with expensive tastes in robot servants; and he had relatives. Let him get Kalinoff off this God-forsaken planet, where he had been marooned for the past year, and even an interplanetary screwball might be expected to show some feeling of gratitude. Combine this feeling of gratitude with a reasonably fair contract already printed, and needing only the explorer's scrawl to give it validity, and Lamoureux could almost feel the money in his pocket. If only McCracken had not spoiled everything by his stupidity Lamoureux shuddered to think that by the time they got to him Kalinoff might be dead, and they would have to do business with his heirs—heirs who had no sense of gratitude to impair their business judgment. He felt suddenly poor again. But he put the gloomy thought out of his head, and went on with his work. UNPACKING would be finished in a couple of hours at most. Meanwhile there was some preliminary exploring to be done. The neighboring ground must be surveyed, and landmarks noted, so that they would have a suitable base from which to start their search. Kalinoff had talked about two mountains with a saddlelike ridge joining them. Those two mountains shouldn't be too difficult to recognize—if ever the expedition ran across them. McCracken, obeying orders, was lending a hand at the unloading. What with Mercury's low gravity, and his own strength, he had no difficulty in wrestling around the five hundred pound crates in which their supplies had been packed. However, he was of little help in getting the work done. With what Lamoureux decided was characteristic stupidity, he seemed to be mostly in everyone else's way. Lamoureux called, "McCracken!" "Yes, sir." "Let go those crates. The others , will handle them. I want you—" Lamoureux stopped suddenly. A distant sound had come to his ears—the explosion of a bullet. There was a sudden silence that was so absolute, Lamoureux could hear his men breathe. Another bullet exploded, then another—And silence again. Somebody whispered, "The natives don't have guns. It must be Kalinoff!" "What luck to find him this way!" Lamoureux had run for his own gun. He fired ten shots into the air and waited. But there was no reply. Lamoureux spat out his orders with machine-gun speed. "McCracken, you, Carvalho, and Haggard set out to the right. The shots seemed to be coming from that direction. But we'll take no chances. Gronski, Terrill and Cannoni, go straight ahead. Marsden and Blaine, to the left; Robinson and Sprott, to the rear. Spread out fast and keep your eyes peeled. Don't go any further away than the sound of a bullet. Uncover every damned white-bush, and tear up every desert-cat hill, but don't come back without Kalinoff. Now get going!" THE men started on a run. Lamoureux, waiting impatiently, walked up and down in growing excitement. He had come prepared for a three months' search, expected it. He had pictured himself and his men, exhausted by a long trek across the planet, coming upon the startled Kalinoff, striking a magnificent attitude, and saying, with characteristic Tellurian modesty, "Dr. Livingston, I presume." And, instead, he was going to find Kalinoff in less than a day. He ran into the ship, got out the printed contract, and read it hastily. All was in order. He'd have Kalinoff's signature that day. A half hour passed, and Lamoureux fired ten more shots. Haskell, the cook, was looking at the sky with a troubled expression on his face. He approached Lamoureux apologetically. "Say, Captain—" "What is it, Haskell?" "Does it ever rain on Mercury?" "Never. No rain, no snow, no hail. No man who has ever set foot on the planet has come across any sort of bad weather. Kalinoff emphasizes that fact." "Well, that's what I seemed to remember. But just now I thought I felt a drop of rain." "Impossible, Haskell. Some bird—" Lamoureux stopped abruptly. He, too, had thought he felt a drop of rain. Haskell held out a hairy paw. "I thought I felt another one." His eyes fell on the brown rocks. "Say, here's a big drop that splashed." The brown rocks were being slowly spotted with black. And, as Lamoureux stared, he felt his head grow wet. There was no doubt about it. It was raining. His mouth dropped open. "But it doesn't rain on Mercury!" The sky was a dull gray now, and the patter of rain drowned out his words. He realized suddenly that he was becoming soaked. Haskell was running for the ship. Lamoureux followed him and slammed the door shut. The men who had not been sent to search for Kalinoff were already inside. The rain rattled on the hull of the Astrolight, and on the parched ground. Lamoureux stared through the side port and repeated blankly, "But it doesn't rain on Mercury!" Fortunately, the noise of the rain was so loud that no one heard him say it. II IT was six hours before the first of the search parties Lamoureux had sent out returned. The men were soaked, but they had seen no trace of Kalinoff. They had faithfully tried to follow Lamoureux's directions, but in a downpour where it was impossible to see more than fifty feet ahead of them, they stood little chance of rescuing anyone. Most of the six hours had been spent finding their own way home. The other search parties drifted in slowly, until all had returned. Lamoureux checked them off one by one, and discovered, with practically no surprise, that McCracken was missing. "Where is the idiot?" he growled. "McCracken separated from the rest of us," replied Carvalho. "He thought he could catch a glimpse of those mountains Kalinoff described." "When was this?" "Just before it started to rain." "He's probably within a few hundred yards of the ship right now, but can't find us because of this rain. I hope he has sense enough to dig up a white-bush and get some shelter." "We can never be sure how, much sense McCracken has. Anyway, Captain, it can't go on raining like this for very long." But it could, and it did. The men sat around in the ship, stretching lazily, and took life easy. They had not had time to unpack many of the five hundred pound crates, and what materials were exposed to the rain would not be spoiled. There was no harm in leaving them where they were. A vacation of this sort would have been welcome, if the trip through space to Mercury had itself not been so largely a vacation. After a day, Lamoureux saw plainly that his men were sick of inactivity. So, for that matter, was he. He had come to take part in a strenuous and dangerous expedition, not to sit on his fanny waiting for the rain to go away. Twenty-four hours after everyone else had returned to the ship, McCracken made a sensational reappearance. With that independence of thought that Lamoureux was beginning to recognize, he had found his own way of coping with the bad weather. He had stripped off his soggy and unpleasant clothing, and had meandered around for the past day clad in nothing but his shorts, with his rifle, his one remaining possession, held firmly in the crook of his right arm. The rain was fairly warm, and outside of giving him his usual ravenous appetite, his outing had done him no harm. LAMOUREUX got one of the crew to dig up an extra suit of clothes to cover McCracken's manly beauty. "Where did you sleep?" "I didn't." "You wandered around all this time shocking the natives without rest?" "I'm no sissy," grunted McCracken. "I'm not even tired." He yawned, and caught himself. "I didn't see anything of Kalinoff. But I got a good look at those mountains he described. The pair with the saddleback ridge between them." "Where are they?" McCracken scratched his head. "I think I lost my sense of direction. But they're not far from here. No, sir, they're not far. Kalinoff is as good as found. The screwball." His eyes closed while he was talking, and Lamoureux had him led to his bunk and deposited there. Two minutes later, McCracken's snoring was competing successfully with the noise of the rain. There was little sense in looking for the mountains until the rain let up. Lamoureux waited, and waited in vain. The downpour kept on until its monotonous sound had become an integral part of their life. They learned to talk without paying any attention to it, and without even hearing it. But not without, now and then, cursing it. After it had been raining for a week, Lamoureux noticed that the temperature was falling. It probably signified that on this part of the Twilight Zone the Sun was dropping further behind the horizon. As if he didn't already have troubles enough. He cursed Mercury; he cursed the Twilight Zone; he cursed the rain; he even cursed the Sun. A few hours later, he also cursed the snow and the hail. Such weather was absolutely incredible. There was nothing to explain it. As he had told Haskell, the cook, no previous explorer had ever seen a sign of rain, snow, or hail. Kalinoff had not reported such phenomena, and Kalinoff got around. The men were going crazy with inactivity. Worst of all, to Lamoureux, was the way they looked at him. They seemed to feel that, as leader of the expedition, he was responsible for the weather. Lamoureux almost found himself agreeing with them. ON the tenth day, he could stand it no longer. He called the men together and made a short speech. "Men, this rain seems able to go on forever. We can't stay here waiting for it to clear up." Somebody cheered hopefully, and the others, for the sake of exercising their lungs, joined in. Lamoureux held up his hand. "McCracken has reported that he saw the mountains we were looking for, with the saddleback ridge between them. Rain or no rain, we're going to find them." Somebody yelled, "Three cheers for Big Muscles McCracken!" The three cheers were roared. Then there came, "Three cheers for our brave and heroic captain!" and, "Three cheers for the mountains!" and even, "Three cheers for the lousy rain and snow." Lamoureux began to feel uncomfortable. This was too much like a high school football rally, with burlesque overtones, to suit him. The men were bursting with pent-up energy, and it had to get out somehow. "I'm leaving only a half dozen of you behind to stay with the ship. The rest are coming with me. Any volunteers?" He had expected what followed. They all volunteered. He made his choices rapidly. McCracken went along because he had actually seen the mountains. Carvalho would make an intelligent assistant. Gronski, Marsden, Sprott—he reeled off the names rapidly, and in less than a minute had his group, leaving a disgruntled half dozen who would have nothing to do but continue to sit around the ship. Lamoureux himself carried a two-way radio transmission set capable of receiving intelligible signals over a distance of 12,000 miles. He gave another of the sets to McCracken, and ordered the man to hang on to it no matter what happened. In the rain, it would be their only way of maintaining communications with the ship. He put McCracken and the radio in the second squad under Carvalho, and himself took charge of the first. The two squads would stick together unless some emergency demanded that they separate. When they set out in the snow, wearing the heaviest clothing they had, the men were singing. McCracken's voice, like the croaking of a huge bullfrog, supplied an unharmonized but ear-filling bass. It sounded so impressive to Lamoureux that not until McCracken had reached the third song did he perceive that the man didn't know any of the melodies at all. He just oom-pahed as the spirit moved him, evidently feeling that, on Mercury, noise and good spirits were more important than any tune. THEY had been marching for a half hour when Gronski exclaimed, "Well, I'll be damned to Venus and back!" "What's wrong, Gronski?" "It isn't snowing so hard, Captain." It wasn't. Carvalho said hopefully, "Maybe it'll stop." Sprott was so overwhelmed with delight that he scooped up a huge pile of snow, pressed it together, and popped McCracken on the nose with it. McCracken threw him down and poured snow down his back. Lamoureux said angrily, "Stop that, you fools! You're not a bunch of kids." The horseplay came to an abrupt halt. They marched on a little more soberly, and in a few minutes the snow had stopped falling altogether. Instead of being as happy as Lamoureux had expected, McCracken seemed puzzled. He scratched his head and scowled. "What's wrong, McCracken? Termites?" "It's this snow, Captain. We walk two or three miles and it stops. It don't make sense." "It's got to stop sometime." "The point is, Captain, it didn't snow here at all. There's none on the ground. It just snowed around the ship." It cost Lamoureux an effort to admit it, but McCracken was right. He was not as stupid as he had seemed. It was Lamoureux's turn to scowl. He got in touch with the ship. "Haskell!" "Yes, sir?" "How's the weather where you are?" "Are you joking, Captain?" "I'm serious, Haskell. Is it clear?" "It's still snowing, Captain, just as it was less than an hour ago when you left." Lamoureux grunted. "You may be interested to know that it hasn't snowed here at all." He cut off Haskell's astonished voice, and turned to the others, who now seemed a little uneasy. The unexpected changes in the weather were a little too much for them. "Now that it's cleared up, we should be able to find that mountain. We'll spread out just a little, but not too far. For all we know, it may start to snow again. Carvalho, you take your group off to the left—" Sprott whispered, "Captain!" "Yes?" "Isn't that a Mercurian?" LAMOUREUX stared Where Sprott had pointed. About a half mile away, a small gray creature, looking, as McCracken had reported, like a penguin, but with a broader face and no bill to speak of, was standing motionless. "Sprott, you and Marsden go over to that thing. Be as friendly as you know how. Smile, grin, stand on your head if you have to, but don't scare it away. Try to induce it to follow you here. Maybe we'll finally get some of that information about Kalinoff we're looking for." Sprott and Marsden were approaching the Mercurian cautiously. Several hundred yards away, they stopped and spread their arms in what was evidently meant to be a gesture of good will. The Mercurian remained motionless. Not until the men had come within thirty feet of it did it give a sign of life. Then it took a step toward them. As Lamoureux watched, the two men spoke a few words. The Mercurian did not respond, but when they turned around and moved away, it followed slowly. Seen from close at hand, the Mercurian did not so greatly resemble a penguin. To begin with, it had no wings, and no arms either. It lacked a bill altogether, but had instead a small mouth that seemed crammed with teeth. Its two eyes were slanted, which gave it an appearance of slyness. There were two round tufted ears. It moved forward not by waddling, but with a smooth roller-coaster gait that was the result of its moving its four legs forward one after the other. Sprott reported, "It seems hurt." There was, in fact, a grayish wound on the Mercurian's chest. Lamoureux didn't know enough about Mercurian physiology to hazard a guess as to what would be the best treatment; and, therefore, decided to leave well enough alone. But, according to Kalinoff, the Mercurians were intelligent. He wondered if the screwball explorer had taught this one any of the Earth languages. "Can you speak English?" The Mercurian stared at him with its sly expression and said nothing. "Parlez-vous francais? Sprechen sie Deutsch?" The men were grinning now, and Lamoureux felt his face growing warm. He must look like a fool, trying to carry on a conversation with a bird. He asked, "Anybody here know Russian? Polish? Spanish?" HIS men supplied him with phrases in the languages he asked for, but the Mercurian remained unresponsive. McCracken ventured, "He don't look very bright to me, Captain. I can't understand why Kalinoff said they were intelligent." "Maybe," suggested Sprott, "it's because they just stand there looking wise and don't say anything." Lamoureux shook his head. "Kalinoff wouldn't be impressed by anybody's just looking wise. And he wouldn't be impressed by anybody's, not saying anything. He 'didn't go for either stuffed shirts or strong silent men. That's why I believe that this thing must have a language of its own, and a fairly decent brain." The Mercurian closed its two eyes slowly, like a sleepy cat, and opened them again. Then it poked one of its four feet out from under its body and scratched on the ground. "He's nuts," decided McCracken. "Just scrabbling around." "Hold it," ordered Lamoureux, "I'm beginning to get this." The Mercurian had scratched nine parallel lines, only a few of them visible on the rocky ground. Now it scratched other lines, perpendicular to these. Lamoureux barked, "A checkerboard! That's what it is! Has anybody got one?" Marsden had a pocket chess set. He took it out. The Mercurian's eyes brightened. It sat down suddenly on the hard ground. "I'll be damned," said Lamoureux. "He wants to play a game. Go ahead, Marsden. Entertain our guest." The men were grinning again. Marsden squatted down on the ground and began to set up the men. The Mercurian stretched out two of its paws—three-fingered affairs, the fingers almost human—and seized one white chessman and one black. It hid the paws behind its back, then held them out again. Marsden chose the white, and moved forward the queen's pawn. The Mercurian countered and the game was on. It was Kalinoff who must have taught this creature the game, and, if it did nothing else, the incident showed that the explorer was just as screwy as ever, and probably alive somewhere on the planet. Or did it merely show that he had been alive? Lamoureux, undecided, watched the curious battle of wits. Half an hour later, Marsden, thoroughly beaten, demanded, "Who says this thing isn't intelligent?" III THE Mercurian was sitting up, wagging its head from side to side as if waiting for approbation. But Lamoureux, quite sure now that it wouldn't or couldn't talk, wouldn't have given a damn if it had beaten every champion on Earth. In addition, he was bothered by the fact that it was snowing again. The flakes had just begun to fall, large and feathery, and Lamoureux himself soon had a powdered look. Most of the other men were still gathered around the Mercurian. But one of them, Sprott, came over to Lamoureux and glanced up at the sky as if puzzled. "It's following us around, Captain." "What is?" "The snow, sir." "Don't be silly, Sprott. We just happen to have run into a streak of bad weather." Sprott went on stubbornly, "It looks funny to me. First it rains and snows for ten days around the ship. But it doesn't rain, or at least it doesn't snow, here. An hour after we get to this place, though, it starts coming down." Lamoureux brushed some of the white flakes off his shoulders. "All right, Sprott, suppose you are right. It is following us around. That's no reason to alarm the other men, is it?" "I guess not, sir . . . I won't say a word. But there's something else I wanted to speak to you, about, sir. It's McCracken." "You believe he's responsible for the snow?" Sprott looked astonished. "I don't mean that, sir. I don't see how he could be." "I do. He shot a Mercurian. I have an idea that they're the ones who are causing the peculiar weather we've been having." "Why would they do that, sir?" "Well, Kalinoff didn't mention seeing any weapons among them, so we've always assumed they had none. But suppose the weather was their weapon. It's a very effective one, Sprott. They've made things damnably unpleasant for us." "How can they make rain where there isn't any, Captain? I know that rainmakers on Earth have had some success. But all they do is get the rain to fall near where it would have fallen anyway. They may make it precipitate a few hours before it would have otherwise, but that's all. Here there weren't any clouds to start with." Lamoureux admitted, "I don't know how the trick is done, Sprott. But I agree with you that the snow is following us around, and I'm sure that the trick is done." SPROTT was silent a moment. Then he said, "And you think, sir, it's all because McCracken shot one of them?" "They evidently believe in the principle of the rain falling on the just and unjust alike. And the same thing goes for the snow." Sprott said doubtfully, "I'm not sure about that, sir. But I do know that McCracken is up to something. He's been getting some queer noises on his receiver." "Such as Haskell singing lullabies from the ship?" "Nothing as unpleasant as that, Captain. They're just a series of sounds, some a little longer than others. Da, da, da-a-a, da—that sort of thing." Lamoureux asked, "When did you hear them?" "About ten minutes ago. McCracken doesn't know anything about chess, and neither do I, so we both wandered away after the first ten minutes. McCracken said he had an idea where those mountains were." Lamoureux's eyes narrowed. "Those noises are undoubtedly a message. I seem to remember that some centuries back there was a code invented by a man named Morris. That's it, the Morris code. But where could such a message have come from?" Sprott shook his head. "I couldn't say, sir. There's supposed to be no one but Kalinoff on Mercury, and his radio set doesn't work. Could the message have been sent from Earth?" "Impossible, Sprott. That set will hardly get more than twelve thousand miles." Sprott looked uncomfortable. "Then maybe what I heard wasn't a message at all, sir." "I think it was. Does McCracken know you overheard him?" "I don't think so, sir." "Then don't let him know that we suspect anything wrong. Come to think of it, McCracken never seems to act quite as stupid as he pretends to be. I shouldn't be surprised if, when he shot that Mercurian, he understood very well what he was doing." "You believe, sir, that he deliberately tried to cause trouble? Why would he do that?" "I don't know," said Lamoureux slowly. That wasn't the whole truth. He didn't know, but he certainly could make a shrewd guess. All along, his chief reason for fearing delay on this expedition had been that Kalinoff might die before he could get to him. Now there was another reason for fearing delay. Suppose there were another expedition on the way to rescue Kalinoff. And suppose McCracken was secretly in the pay of the people behind that expedition, and doing everything possible to sabotage this one. Lamoureux nodded to himself. That was probably it. The first thing, then, was to get the radio set from McCracken. BIG Muscles, as the other men had nicknamed McCracken, was a few hundred feet away, staring off into the distance. What else he could see besides snow, Lamoureux couldn't guess. He yelled, "Hey, McCracken!" "Coming, Captain." McCracken took a few tentative steps, broke into a short run, and then made a leap that carried him seventy-five feet through the, air, past where Lamoureux was standing. He ended up at attention, his hand raised in a military salute. Lamoureux frowned. Knowing what he did about McCracken, this attempt to seem carefree, childish, and perhaps a little stupid impressed him unfavorably. He said, "McCracken, I'm taking you out of Carvalho's group and putting you into my own. I may need some strong-arm work and you're just the man for it." "I sure am, Captain." "Seeing as I already have a radio, you may as well turn yours over to Carvalho." McCracken seemed a trifle less eager. "It's rather heavy, Captain. If you'd like, I'd carry it for you just the same." "I prefer to have my own where I can get at it whenever the need arises. Turn yours over to Carvalho, McCracken." "Yes, sir. Meanwhile, I want to report, sir, that from where I was standing when you called to me, I think I could see those mountains." Lamoureux had his doubts, but he kept them to himself. "Good," he said briefly. "We'll get going." He called the men together again and gave them their marching orders. Whether the Mercurian understood what he said, Lamoureux didn't know. At any rate, it went along willingly. They reached the place where McCracken had been standing, and Lamoureux stared where Big Muscles pointed. There were two mountains rising off in the distance, barely visible through the snow, and there was certainly a saddleback ridge between them. The only trouble was that one of the mountains was almost twice the height of the other. Kalinoff had reported them as approximately the same height. "That doesn't fit Kalinoff's description." McCracken said, "Maybe he looked at them from a different angle, sir. Then they might have seemed the same height." "If he looked at them from a different angle, the ridge would no longer seem saddlebacked." "That's true, sir. But then you know, sir, Kalinoff is a screwball—" Lamoureux found this a little hard to take from a man he suspected of quietly trying to stab him in the back. But he continued to hide his feelings. "That's as may be, McCracken, but he's not cockeyed. These aren't the mountains he described. Still, we may as well approach them. We may be able to get a good view from the top of the taller one." THEY moved onward again. A quarter of an hour's marching took them to the edge of the falling snow. As they walked further, the air became completely clear, and Lamoureux could see the mountains without straining his eyes. There was no doubt about it. They were not the mountains Kalinoff had described. The Mercurian horizon was not so far away as the more familiar horizon of Earth, and it was a little difficult for Lamoureux to estimate distances. Still, the foothills of the mountains could not be more than twenty miles away. For the past day, little more than the rim of the Sun had been visible above the horizon, and while the peaks were ablaze with scarlet and golden colors, only the higher one was out of the shadow to any considerable extent. The saddlebacked ridge itself was a vague outline of dull black. The snow did not catch up with them until four or five hours later, when they stopped to prepare a meal and rest. Then it began to fall gently after they had been in the same place for three-quarters of an hour. By now, Lamoureux was sure that it was the Mercurians who were to blame. He still wondered how they did it. The one they had come across had remained with them, and Lamoureux found it harder than ever to regard the creature as intelligent. All the thing had done was walk and play chess. Lamoureux had a low opinion of chess players, even when they were fairly human. He had an even lower opinion of trained animals. This Mercurian fell, in his estimation, somewhere between. They were no more than a mile or two from the foothills of the larger mountain by now, and the saddlebacked ridge loomed several hundred feet into the air. Unfortunately, the snow was between it and them, and prevented them from gaining too clear a view. Lamoureux wondered if the snow would keep up even at the top of the mountain, and damned McCracken again for shooting that Mercurian. And then he discovered that McCracken's feats of arms were not yet ended. McCracken was at that very moment aiming at some target that Lamoureux could not see. Lamoureux sprang to his feet. "Don't shoot, you fool!" He was a little too late. The noise of the explosion rang out. McCracken said, "Sorry, sir, I didn't hear you until my finger had already squeezed the trigger. But I wasn't trying to hit anything that was alive. There was something that looked like a rock on that ridge—" The words died away in his throat. Lamoureux lifted his eyes and saw something hovering in front of them, high in the air. It had eyes and a mouth and, from these features, he knew that it was a huge head, as large as a fair-sized house. There was a long, interminable stretch of neck behind it, and somewhere in the rear he felt sure was a monstrous body. But he wasted no time searching for that. The eyes were staring at the men unblinkingly. These eyes alone were bigger than the men were. Then the neck stretched out and the head came poking down. LAMOUREUX turned and ran. It had been years since he had done much physical exercise, but he made up for them now. Then, too, as the captain of the expedition, he felt that the men might expect a certain amount of leadership from him; it was with some dismay that he discovered that all the rest were ahead of him. Picking up speed, he passed Sprott, then Marsden, and then Gronski. Ahead of him someone stumbled, and Lamoureux wasted a precious second helping the man to his feet. The huge head opened, and a roar that almost knocked out his eardrums vibrated through Lamoureux's body. The ground shook under him. That meant that the whole creature, whatever it was, was coming after them. Gronski and Sprott passed him as if someone had stuck a needle into them, and Lamoureux, sobbing for breath, tripped over a rock and plunged headlong. The ground beside him trembled as if it were being rocked by a series of quakes. A deep shadow fell over him, and Lamoureux tried to dig his prone body into the ground and not breathe. From far ahead, a scream of terror split the air. Then the quakes and the shadow had passed, and Lamoureux dared to lift his head. Far ahead, he could make out the gigantic neck stretching into the air, its outline already vague through the falling snow. A few feet away from him lay Gronski, and a little further on McCracken. None of the other men were in sight. The valiant McCracken, his rifle still clutched to him, was aiming at the vanishing figure. Lamoureux said, "Don't bother, McCracken. You've already done enough harm." "I just thought I'd get a shot at him, sir, while he was excited. He wouldn't know where it came from." "He knew the first time. Don't bother, I say. You can't hurt him, and he can do plenty to you." "All right, Captain." Lamoureux brushed some of the snow off him and tried to catch his breath. "McCracken, if you're really anxious to play with your gun, you may fire into the air. Five times." "Yes, sir." McCracken fired, and they waited. Lamoureux said, "I hope nobody was hurt. I don't think any of them, if they're alive, are too far away to hear those shots. We'll wait for them to assemble here and then start out for those mountains again." "Yes, sir. Except, Captain, that it may be a little difficult—" "What'll be difficult?" "Finding those mountains. They just don't look the same." Lamoureux stared. The mountains stretched into the air exactly the same as before, the same scarlet and gold colors glowing on their peaks, the same shadows on their sides. But the saddle-backed ridge between them— Lamoureux looked again. The entire ridge was gone. IV THE snow fell as steadily as ever while Lamoureux waited for the men to assemble. Only two were missing now—Terrill and Carvalho. McCracken had fired again and again into the air, but these two had not returned. Lamoureux decided finally, "It looks as if they're not coming. Gronski, you take over for Carvalho. You'll stay here in charge of his group while the rest of us climb the mountain." McCracken said, "You want me to come with you, don't you, Captain?" "I certainly do. I'm curious to know what in hell way of ruining this expedition you'll think of next." "Aw, now, Captain, that isn't fair. How was I to know that whole ridge was one big animal? You wouldn't have believed it yourself. Something over five hundred feet high, with a neck even longer. We're not used to them that big on Earth. Here the gravity's less, so it's okay. But even Kalinoff—" "Don't talk to me about Kalinoff," said Lamoureux fiercely. "He's as bad as you. That screwball!" "We're still trying to find him, aren't we, Captain?" "Sure, we're trying to find him, but how can we expect to do it?" Was it his imagination, or did McCracken seem pleased? Lamoureux didn't care. He Went on, very bitterly, "He starts off by telling us that the Mercurians are intelligent. You saw how intelligent they were. Where's that specimen we had?" "He got lost in the shuffle," reported Gronski. "It's just as well. Kalinoff tells us of a landmark—two mountains with a saddlebacked ridge between them. The ridge runs away, and our landmark isn't a landmark any more. Then there's the weather—no rain, no hail, no snow. Nothing but pure fresh air and nice clean sunshine." He kicked at a snowdrift. "What's this thing supposed to be, a mirage?" McCracken said, "I know how you feel, Captain. But about this mountain now—do you really think we ought to climb it?" "Why not?" "You can't see the top from here on account of the snow. It's coming down in bigger flakes than ever now. That means you can't see here from the top. And as the only reason we want to climb it is to take a look around—" "We'll climb it anyway. Maybe it isn't snowing as hard on the other side." THEY started off then, with Lamoureux barely keeping a tight enough grip on his feelings to prevent his talking to himself. The mountain was steep, but the gravity here being low, it was easy enough to climb. McCracken demonstrated how easy it was by running up it full speed. Lamoureux let him go, hoping that he would break his neck, but McCracken's luck was too good. All he did was start a gentle landslide that almost buried everybody else. As they rose, they got more and more of the Sun's rays and the temperature went up slightly. The snow turned to rain, drenching them to the skin, and they climbed all the faster, anxious to get the job over with. At the top, the rain had died down to a faint drizzle. Lamoureux, looking off into the distance, could see as through a veil a range of sky-piercing mountains, their peaks gleaming in the Sun, their roots cleft with deep shadowed valleys. Between almost every pair of mountains was a saddlebacked ridge. "Landmarks," commented Lamoureux sourly. "To hell with them." "I told you it would be a waste of time, Captain." "Not in the least, McCracken. After all, you might have broken your neck." They started down again, and in a half hour were back at the line where the rain changed to snow. Another hour took them to Gronski again. Lamoureux shook his head. "No sign of Kalinoff." "What do we do now?" "We go back to the ship and carry on from there. I don't know what steps we'll take after that, but at least we'll get back to shelter, out of this snow." "Which way is the ship?" "That," said Lamoureux, "is one question we can find the answer to." He spoke into his radio. "Haskell!" Haskell was alert. "Yes, Captain." "Keep your radio beam going. We're depending on it for direction." "Sure, Captain." Lamoureux snapped off the sending set. "Now let's get moving, before we freeze to death." The return trip was a slow one. Their spirits were all low, even McCracken's. Lamoureux pictured the return to Earth, the eager, and then disappointed, reception, and the wave of ridicule that would follow their account of the difficulties they had encountered. They stopped once to eat. Lamoureux estimated that they had supplies for another two and a half months left in the ship, not counting what would be needed for the return journey. They might as well stay here until those supplies were used up. They might possibly find Kalinoff in those two and a half months, although, with the Twilight Zone of the whole planet to look in, and no decent clues, not to mention the difficulties caused by the snow, the chances were none too bright. Nevertheless, they would have to do their best. The meal came to an end, and they started off again. They had gone only a few hundred yards, when Lamoureux noticed something wrong. "Haskell!" There was no reply. Haskell's radio beam had been shut off. THIS was a little too much. Lamoureux let loose a streak of profanity that had even McCracken staring at him in awe. Then they started out again, trying, through the falling snow, and over the rocky ground, to keep in as straight a line as possible toward the ship. Lamoureux managed to sustain his spirits only by thinking of what he would do to his cook. Two hours later, he had an opportunity to put his plan into practice. For out of the snow there emerged Haskell, and the men who had been left with him at the ship. Haskell started to run toward Lamoureux the moment he caught sight of the other group. "Here we are, Captain! We came as fast as we could!" Lamoureux's eyes were almost as cold as the snow. "How thoughtful of you." "Who else is hurt, Captain?" "Nobody's hurt, but somebody is going to be." Haskell looked surprised. "I don't get it. You told me to come as fast as I could, and you said that eight of the men were badly injured." "I told you?" "Yes, sir. I thought you were hurt yourself, sir. Your voice sounded hoarse." Lamoureux's jaws were clenched together so tightly in his effort to maintain his self-control that his teeth hurt. He unclenched them. "I don't quite understand you, Haskell. My voice is as melodious as ever. Something else is strange, too. You ask who else is hurt." "Yes, sir. We ran across Terrill a little while ago. He got brushed by the tail of some animal and was walking around in a real daze." "How do you suppose we're walking? At any rate, I'm glad you found him. See any signs of Carvalho?" "No, sir. We left the radio beam on to guide you—" "What's that? You're sure you left it on?" "Positive, sir." "Well, someone has turned it off! Someone—Oh, my God!" It was so damn simple, and he had never even thought of it. Carvalho was the man. Carvalho was shrewd and quiet, a man who could keep his intentions to himself and wreck an expedition without so much as being suspected. Subconsciously, Lamoureux hadn't quite believed in McCracken's guilt, despite the seeming evidence against him. McCracken had too genuine a love of horseplay, and of childish showing off. These things were hard to pretend. You didn't put snow down somebody's back when you were plotting to leave him marooned on a deserted planet. And you didn't impress people by making a seventy-five foot broad jump when you could impress them much more effectively by condemning them to slow death. ONCE he had thought of it. Lamoureux couldn't doubt Carvalho had turned off the radio beam at the ship. By now the Astrolight was probably some where in space, possibly proceeding to some rendezvous with a rival expedition. Carvalho wouldn't dare appear back on Earth as the lone passenger returning on Lamoureux's ship. But he wouldn't have to. He could set the Astrolight adrift, be "rescued" by the people who had employed him, and come back to tell of the dangers he had braved on Mercury. It all fitted in. Carvalho had been the one who had tried to hamper their work from the moment they had landed. When McCracken had shot that Mercuian— Lamoureux asked, "What happened then? Try to remember. McCracken scratched his head vigorously. "I think Carvalho saw this Mercurian and started to yell and run. I thought he was scared. That's why I shot." So Carvalho had really been responsible for the shooting. Lamoureux asked, "Why didn't you report that Carvalho started to yell and run?" "Well, Captain, you don't expect me to go around telling you things like that about another guy?" The words, "You fool," had been on Lamoureux's lips, but he bit them back. After all, who had been the bigger fool, McCracken or he himself, who had insisted that Carvalho get the radio? There was no doubt about the answer to that one. As for the occasion when the radio had begun to emit its mysterious code signals, the explanation for that was simple enough, too. The people who were in contact with Carvalho had sent their messages, not knowing whether strangers might be listening in, but not caring either. No one could make head or tail of the mysterious sounds but Carvalho. McCracken had, in fact, considered the noises a new strange form of static that had interefered when he tried to talk to Haskell. Lamoureux felt like asking McCracken to kick him in the pants. As that would have been bad for discipline, he substituted an order to get started back toward the ship. There was the faintest of chances that Carvalho had delayed, or had been forced by some accident to delay, his departure back to Earth. It was snowing harder than ever now, and it was difficult for Lamoureux to see more than fifty feet ahead of him. The rim of the Sun was blotted out so thoroughly that it was almost as dark as on a moonless night. Nevertheless he pressed on doggedly. It was not until six hours later, after he and the men had been wandering around aimlessly for a long enough time to have reached the ship and returned, that he admitted to himself that they were lost. V NOT that it mattered a great deal. Lamoureux realized perfectly well that by this time the Astrolight was on its return journey to Earth. All the same, it was disheartening to know that he was so completely unable to find his way about on this planet. The question now was what to do. They had little enough food, and not too much in the way of other supplies. They would have to live off the planet until some kind of rescue expedition had been organized to save them. If Kalinoff had done it, they could, too. Lamoureux's face burned as he pictured himself striding over to Kalinoff, staring at the man solemnly, and uttering those historic words, "Dr. Livingston, I presume." That was one scene that would never take place. It was growing colder by the hour. That meant that they would have to move over toward the Hot Side before the Sun sank beneath the horizon altogether. McCracken, the most cheerful of the lot, had a glum face as he asked, "What do we do now, Captain?" "First we eat, McCracken. Then we move toward the Sun. Just one word, McCracken. You like to shoot?" "Yes, sir." "Save your bullets. I have an idea we're going to need them before this little adventure of ours is finished." Then Lamoureux sat down on a snowy rock," leaned back, and thought everything over. It was improbable now that any of his kids would ever get to Lunar Tech. Well, that wasn't anything to be sorry about. The life of ease and luxury of the place had ruined more than one promising youngster. His wife would have to get along with a single robot. It would do her good to wait on the family for a change. As for his relatives—to hell with them. Let them find somebody else to sponge on. He was busy with these cheerful reflections when he heard McCracken shout, "Hey!" A figure loomed out of the snow ahead. The figure paused and stared at Lamoureaux. McCracken yelled, "Hey, Captain!" The figure came forward, bowed, and showed its teeth. "M Stanley, I presume?" LOOKING back at it later, Lamoureux decided that this was the most mortifying moment of his life. He had been sent to save Kalinoff. Instead, Kalinoff had save him. It was the screwball explorer of course. Lamoureux recognize him at once. Kalinoff was a shrimp, a fraction of an inch below five feet in height, and he had a face like a monkey's. Having taken a good look at him, Lamoureux felt, "My God, is this what we've been trying to rescue?" Kalinoff was not alone. He was accompanied by a pair of penguin-like Mercurians, who looked just as sly and acted with as little intelligence as the one they had previously encountered. Lamoureux had no idea how Kalino had managed to get along wit them. Kalinoff, it seemed, was angry "Why in hell," he demanded "didn't you have sense enough t return to the ship?" Lamoureux stared. "You mean the Astrolight still here?" "Of course it's here. And the radio beam is on." "You're sure—the beam is on?" "Of all the nitwits to let loose on an unfriendly planet, you're about the worst. I've just told you it's on, haven't I? It's been on for the past two hours." Lamoureux swallowed hard. "And Carvalho?" "There's a man who I assume is Carvalho. He's tied up. I've got a couple of friends watching him to make sure he doesn't get away." "Friends?" "Like these." Kalinoff indicated the Mercurians. "Come on. I'd like to get back to Earth. There's a girl I've got to see." "But who—what happened to Carvalho?" "He seemed anxious to leave, so I pushed my fist down his throat. Incidentally, there was a radio going, with a code message." "Short distance, radio?" "Interplanetary. The ship's hull acted as a receiver, naturally. You could get the message anywhere on the planet by arranging a short distance automatic rebroadcast." "So that's what Carvalho did." "If I'm late this time," said Kalinoff worriedly, "she and I are finished. She's willing to put up with dates six months in advance, but there's a limit, and I've been late too often. And she's too nice to lose. Get a move on, quick." Lamoureux, in a daze, complied. They were only an hour's journey from the ship, and, under Kalinoff's urging, they made it in forty minutes. Carvalho, looking terrified of the two Mercurians who were standing over him with their teeth showing, yelled, "Help!" "Never mind him," Kalinoff ordered. "Hop into the ship." "But what are we going to do with him?" "Well, what's he been up to?" LAMOUREUX explained briefly, and Kalinoff grunted. "You fellows are a bunch of screwballs, setting out on an expedition like this without proper equipment and proper information about Mercury." At the word "screwballs," Lamoureux winced, but remained silent. Maybe it was deserved. Kalinoff went on, "As for Carvalho, that's simple. Leave him behind. He intended to maroon you, didn't he? Maroon him instead. But first, let him send one interplanetary radio message to his friends." "In code? We won't know what it is!" Kalinoff grinned. "We'll leave his punishment up to him. Suppose he reports you've found me. Then his pals won't come for him, and he's going to stay here indefinitely." "What if he reports you haven't been found?" "Then they come for him, discover he's a liar, and there's hell to pay. Either way, he's in for a lousy time." "They'll murder him." "Oh, no. We'll let them know that we're' reporting the facts of the case to the Interplanetary Commission. They'd never dare commit murder." Lamoureux objected doubtfully, "Wouldn't the Mercurians kill him?" "If he treats them right, they'll treat him right. They're not as intelligent –as I thought at first—maybe you've discovered that—but they have their points." "They're wonderful chess players." "Fair," said Kalinoff critically. "Only fair. I always beat them, but then, naturally, I'm very good. Maybe that's why they admire me. They have great mathematical abilities, and they can visualize well, but their language is primitive and in some ways they're halfwits. There have been plenty of mathematical prodigies on Earth just like them—wonders at calculating, and fools at everything else. To hell with them. Let's get started." "Wait a minute, Kalinoff. What about those huge beasts? Won't they be dangerous to Carvalho?" "Oh, them." Kalinoff chuckled. "I certainly gave you some off-beam instructions before that radio of mine went on the blink. I really thought at first that those two mountains I described with the saddlebacked ridge between them would make a good landmark. Two days afterward, I discovered that the ridges were living creatures. The things have a habit of sheltering themselves from the Sun between a pair of mountains. They wrap their necks around their bodies, tuck their heads beside them, and you'd never know they were alive: They don't move for days at a time." "But when they do move—" "Leave them alone, and they leave you alone." THE Captain asked, "What about the rain and snow?" "I may as well clear this up once and for all. The rain and snow were my doing. After I had told you to rely on the Mercurians and described the landmark, I discovered that the Mercurian were nitwits and the landmark a false alarm. That meant that, once you landed, you'd never find me except by accident. That put it up to me to find you. "As you may have heard, normally there's no such thing as rain or snow on Mercury. But there is water. And there is a continual process of transfer going on. The water flows through subterranean channels to the Hot Side, evaporates, and is carried over in the air to the Cold Side. There it deposits on the ground eventually as ice, melts, and goes through the whole process again." "Why doesn't it rain?" "Because there's no dust in Mercury's air. The absence of a rapidly alternating day and night means that the air doesn't circulate on the same scale as on Earth. Practically no wind, combined with little erosion, means little dust. The water-laden air cools off and becomes super-satuated at the Twilight Zone. But there are no clouds, and there's no precipitation because the water needs either dust or ions to condense on. In a Wilson cloud chamber, an experimenter furnishes it with ions. Here on Mercury I furnished it with dust. "I gave the Mercurians rifles and explosive bullets, and taught them to shoot into the air. It was quite a job, but they learned. The explosion spreads a cloud of dust, the water condenses, and you have rain or snow, depending on the temperature. I impressed it upon their brains, such as they are, that the presence of human beings calls for a Fourth of July celebration—shooting into the air. And there you are. I had the occurrence of rain and snow reported to me, moved toward wherever the snow was thickest, and found the ship." "Another thing—" "I've talked enough. That dame won't wait forever. Which will it be, Carvalho, the Lady or the Tiger?" They listened in curiosity as Carvalho, tight-lipped, tapped out a short message in code. They didn't ask him what it was. As the Astrolight drove upward away from Mercury, Lamoureux had one last glimpse of the Mercurians shooting into the air. The snow was coming down in enormous flakes two inches across, and Carvalho, staring after the ship, was shivering and cursing. After they reported the facts to the Interplanetary Commission, a ship would be sent to pick him up—but it might take some time. "Let me tell you about this dame," said Kalinoff. Lamoureux listened patiently, got out his contract, and waited, with pen ready, for the interplanetary screwball's signature. —WILLIAM MORRISON THE MODEL OF A JUDGE Ronar was reformed, if that was the right word, but he could see that they didn't trust him. Uneasiness spoke in their awkward hurried motions when they came near him; fear looked out of their eyes. He had to reassure himself that all this would pass. In time they'd learn to regard him as one of themselves and cease to recall what he had once been. For the time being, however, they still remembered. And so did he. Mrs. Claymore, of the presiding committee, was babbling, "Oh, Mrs. Silver, it's so good of you to come. Have you entered the contest?" "Not really," said Mrs. Silver with a modest laugh. "Of course I don't expect to win against so many fine women who are taking part. But I just thought I'd enter to—to keep things interesting." "That was very kind of you. But don't talk about not winning. I still remember some of the dishes you served for dinner at your home that time George and I paid you a visit. Mmmm—they were really delicious." Mrs. Silver uttered another little laugh. "Just ordinary recipes. I'm so glad you liked them, though." "I certainly did. And I'm sure the judge will like your cake, too." "The judge? Don't you usually have a committee?" He could hear every word. They had no idea how sharp his sense of hearing was, and he had no desire to disconcert them further byletting them know. He could hear every conversation taking place in ordinary tones in the large reception room. When he concen­trated he could make out the whispers. At this point he had to con­centrate, for Mrs. Claymore leaned over and breathed into her friend's attentive ear. "My dear, haven't you heard? We've had such trouble with that committee—there were such charges of favoritism! It was really awful." "Really? But how did you find a judge, then?" "Don't look now—no, I'll tell you what to do. Pretend I said something funny, and throw your head back and laugh. Take a quick glance at him while you do. He's sitting up there alone, on the platform." Mrs. Silver laughed gracefully as directed, and her eyes swept the platform. She became so excited, she almost forgot to whisper. "Why, he's—" "Shhh. Lower your voice, my dear." "Why—he isn't human!" "He's supposed to be—now. But, of course, that's a matter of opinion!" "But who on Earth thought of making him judge?" "No one on Earth. Professor Holder, who lives over on that big asteroid the other side of yours, heard of the troubles we had, and came up with the suggestion. At first it seemed absurd—" "It certainly seems absurd to me!" agreed Mrs. Silver. "It was the only thing we could do. There was no one else we could trust." "But what does he know about cakes?" "My dear, he has the most exquisite sense of taste!" "I still don't understand." "It's superhuman. Before we adopted Professor Holder's sug­gestion, we gave him a few tests. The results simply left us gasping. We could mix all sorts of spices—the most delicate, most exotic herbs from Venus or Mars, and the strongest, coarsest flavors from Earth or one of the plant-growing asteroids—and he could tell us everything we had added, and exactly how much." "I find that hard to believe, Matilda." "Isn't it? It's honestly incredible. If I hadn't seen him do it myself, I wouldn't have believed it." "But lie doesn't have human preferences. Wasn't he—wasn't he—" "Carnivorous? Oh, yes. They say he was the most vicious creature imaginable. Let an animal come within a mile of him, and he'd scent it and he after it in a flash. He and the others of his kind made the moon he came from uninhabitable for any other kind of intel­ligent life. Come to think of it, it may have been the very moon we're on now!" "Really?" "Either this, or some other moon of Saturn's. We had to do something about it. We didn't want to kill them off, naturally; that would have been the easiest way, but so uncivilized! Finally, our scientists came up with the suggestion for psychological reform­ing. Professor Holder told us how difficult it all was, but it seems to have worked. In his case, at least." Mrs. Silver stole another glance. "Did it? I don't notice any one going near him." "Oh, we don't like to tempt fate, Clara. But if there were really any danger, I'm sure the psychologists would never have let him out of their clutches." "I hope not. But psychologists take the most reckless risks some­times—with other people's lives!" "Well, there's one psychologist who's risking his own life—and his own wife, too. You know Dr. Cabanis, don't you?" "Only by sight. Isn't his wife that stuck-up thing?" "That's the one. Dr. Cabanis is the man who had actual charge of reforming him. And he's going to be here. His wife is entering a cake." "Don't tell me that she really expects to win!" "She bakes well, my dear. Let's give the she-devil her clue. How on Earth an intelligent man like Dr. Cabanis can stand her. I don't know, but, after all, he's the psychologist, not I, and he could probably explain it better than I could." Ronar disengaged his attention. So Dr. Cabanis was here. He looked around, but the psychologist was not in sight. He would probably arrive later. The thought stirred a strange mixture of emotions. Some of the most painful moments of his life were associated with the presence of Dr. Cabanis. His early life, the life of a predatory carnivore, had been an unthinkingly happy one. He supposed that he could call his present life a happy one too, if you weren't overly particular how you defined the term. But that period in between! That had been, to say the least, painful. Those long sessions with Dr. Cabanis had stirred him to the depths of a soul he hadn't known he possessed. The electric shocks and the druggings he hadn't minded so much. But the gradual reshaping of his entire psyche, the period of basic instruction, in which he had been taught to hate his old life so greatly that he could no longer go back to it even if the way were open, and the conditioning for a new and use­ful life with human beings—that was torture of the purest kind. If he had known what was ahead of him, he wouldn't have gone through it all. He'd have fought until he dropped, as so many of the others like him did. Still, now that it was over, he supposed that the results were worth the pain. He had a position that was more important than it seemed at first glance. He exercised control over a good part of the food supply intended for the outer planets, and his word was trusted implicitly. Let him condemn an intended ship­ment, and cancellation followed automatically, without the formal­ity of confirmation by laboratory tests. He was greatly admired. And feared. They had other feelings about him too. He overheard one whisper that surprised him. "My dear, I think he's really handsome." "But, Charlotte, how can you say that about someone who isn't even human!" "He looks more human than many human beings do. And his clothes fit him beautifully. I wonder—does he have a tail?" "Not that I know of." "Oh." There was disappointment in the sound. "He looks like a pirate." "He was a kind of wolf, they tell me. You'd never guess, to see him, that he ran on all fours, would you?" "Of course not. He's so straight and dignified." "It just shows you what psychology can do." "Psychology, and a series of operations, dear ladies," he thought sarcastically. "Without them I wouldn't be able to stand so nice and straight with the help of all the psychologists in this pretty little solar system of ours." From behind a potted Martian nut-cactus came two low voices—not whispers this time. And there was several octaves' difference in pitch between them. One male, one female. The man said, "Don't be worried, sweetheart. I'll match your cooking and baking against anybody's." There was a curious sound, between a click and a hiss. What human beings called a kiss, he thought. Between the sexes, usually an indication of affection or passion. Sometimes, especially within the ranks of the female sex, a formality beyond which warfare could be waged. The girl said tremulously, "But these women have so much ex­perience. They've cooked and baked for years." "Haven't you, for your own family?" "Yes, but that isn't the same thing. I had to learn from a cook-book. And I had no one with experience to stand over me and teach me." "You've learned faster that way than you'd have clone with some of these old hens standing at your elbow and giving you directions. You cook too well. I'll be fat in no time." "Your mother doesn't think so. And your brother said something about a bride's biscuits—" "The older the joke, the better Charles likes it. Don't let it worry you." He kissed her again. "Have confidence in yourself, dear. You're going to win." "Oh, Gregory, it's awfully nice of you to say so, but really I feel so unsure of myself." "If only the judge were human and took a look at you, nobody else would stand a chance. Have I told you within the last five minutes that you're beautiful?" Ronar disengaged his attention again. He found human lovemaking as repulsive as most human food. He picked up a few more whispers. And then Dr. Cabanis came in. The good doctor looked around, smiled, greeted several ladies of his acquaintance as if he were witnessing a private striptease of their souls, and then came directly up to the platform. "How are you, Ronar?" "Fine, doctor. Are you here to keep an eye on me?" "I hardly think that's necessary. I have an interest in the results of the judging. My wife has baked a cake." "I had no idea that cake baking was so popular a human avoca­tion." "Anything that requires skill is sure to become popular among us. By the way, Ronar, I hope you don't feel hurt." "Hurt, doctor? What do you mean?" "Come now, you understand me well enough. These people still don't trust you. I can tell by the way they keep their distance." "I can take human frailty into account. Frailty, and lack of opportunity. These men and women haven't had the opportunity for extensive psychological treatment that I've had. I don't expect too much of them." "You've scored a point there, Ronar." "Isn't there something that can be done for them, doctor? Some treatment that it would be legal to give them?" "It would have to be voluntary. You see, Ronar, you were con­sidered only an animal, and treatment was necessary to save your life. But these people are supposed to have rights. One of their rights is to be left alone with their infirmities. Besides, none of them are seriously ill. They hurt no one." For a second Ronar had a human temptation. It was on the tip of his tongue to say, "Your wife too, doctor? People wonder how you stand her." But he resisted it. He had resisted more serious temptations. A gong sounded gently but pervasively. Dr. Cabanis said, "I hope you have no resentment against me at this stage of the game, Ronar. I'd hate to have my wife lose the prize because the judge was prejudiced." "Have no fear, doctor. I take professional pride in my work. I will choose only the best." "Of course, the fact that the cakes are numbered and not signed with the names of their creators will make things simpler." "That would matter with human judges. It does not affect me." Another gong sounded, more loudly this time. Gradually the conversation stopped. A man in a full dress suit, with yellow stripes down the sides of his shorts and tails hanging both front and rear, climbed up on the platform. His eyes shone with a greeting so warm that the fear was almost completely hidden. "How are you, Ronar? Glad to see you." "I'm fine, senator. And you?" "Couldn't be better. Have a cigar." "No, thank you. I don't smoke." "That's right, you don't. Besides, I'd be wasting the cigar. You don't vote!" He laughed heartily. "I understand that they're passing a special law to let—people­ like me vote at the next election." "I'm for it, Ronar, I'm for it. You can count on me." The chairman came up on the platform, a stout and dignified woman who smiled at both Ronar and the senator, and shook hands with both without showing signs of distaste for either. The assem­bled competitors and spectators took seats. The chairman cleared her throat. "Ladies and gentlemen, let us open this meeting by singing the 'Hymn of All Planets.' " They all rose, Ronar with them. His voice wasn't too well adapted to singing, but neither, it seemed, were most of the human voices. And, at least, he knew all the words. The chairman proceeded to greet the gathering formally, in the name of the presiding committee. Then she introduced Senator Whitten. She referred archly to the fact that the senator had long since reached the age of indiscre­tion and had so far escaped marriage. He was an enemy of the female sex, but they'd let him speak to them anyway. Senator Whitten just as archly took up the challenge. He had escaped more by good luck—if you could call it good—than by good management. But he was sure that if he had ever had the fortune to encounter some of the beautiful ladies here this fine day, and to taste the products of their splendid cooking and baking, he would have been a lost man. He would long since have committed polygamy. Senator Whitten then launched into a paean of praise for the ancient art of preparing food. Ronar's attention wandered. So did that of a good part of the audience. His ears picked up another conversation, this time whis­pered between a man and a woman in the front row. The man said, "I should have put your name on it, instead of mine." "That would have been silly. All my friends know that I can't bake. And it would look so strange if I won." "It'll look stranger if I win. I can imagine what the boys in the shop will say." "Oh, the boys in the shop are stupid. What's so unmanly in being able to cook and bake?" "I'm not anxious for the news to get around." "Some of the best chefs have been men." "I'm not a chef." "Stop worrying." There was exasperation in the force of her whisper. "You won't win anyway." "I don't know. Sheila—" "What?" "If I win, will you explain to everybody how manly I really am? Will you be my character witness?" She repressed a giggle. "If you won't help me, I'll have to go around giving proof myself." "Shhh, someone will hear you." Senator Whitten went on and on. Ronar thought back to the time when he had wandered over the surface of this, his native satellite. He no longer had the old desires, the old appetites. Only the faintest of ghosts still persisted, ghosts with no power to do harm. But he could remember the old feeling of pleasure, the delight of sinking his teeth into an animal he had brought down himself, the savage joy of gulping the tasty flesh. He didn't eat raw meat any more; he didn't eat meat at all. He had been conditioned against it. He was now half vegetarian, half synthetarian. His meals were nourishing, healthful, and a part of his life he would rather not think about. He took no real pleasure in the tasting of the cakes and other delicacies that born human beings favored. His sense of taste had remained keen only to the advantage of others. To himself it was a tantalizing mockery. Senator Whitten's voice came to a sudden stop. There was ap­plause. The senator sat down; the chairman stood up. The time for the judging had arrived. They set out the cakes—more than a hundred of them, topped by icings of all colors and all flavors. The chairman introduced Ronar and lauded both his impartiality and the keenness of his sense of taste. They had a judging card ready. Slowly Ronar began to go down the line. They might just as well have signed each cake with its maker's name. As he lifted a portion of each to his mouth, he could hear the quick intake of breath from the woman who had baked it, could catch the whispered warning from her companion. There were few secrets they could keep from him. At first they all watched intently. When he had reached the fifth cake, however, a hand went up in the audience. "Madam chairman!" "Please, ladies, let us not interrupt the judging." "But I don't think the judging is right. Mr. Ronar tastes hardly more than a crumb of each!" "A minimum of three crumbs," Ronar corrected her. "One from the body of the cake, one from the icing, and an additional crumb from each filling between layers." "But you can't judge a cake that way! You have to eat it, take a whole mouthful—" "Please, madam, permit me to explain. A crumb is all I need. I can analyze the contents of the cake sufficiently well from that. Let me take, for instance, cake Number 4, made from an excellent recipe, well baked. Martian granis flour, goover eggs, tingan ­flavored salt, a trace of Venusian orange spice, synthetic shortening of the best quality. The icing is excellent, made with rare dipentose sugars which give it a delightful flavor. Unfortunately, however, the cake will not win first prize." An anguished cry rose from the audience. "Why?" 'Through no fault of your own, dear lady. The purberries used in making the filling were not freshly picked. They have the char­acteristic flavor of refrigeration." "The manager of the store swore to me that they were fresh! Oh, I'll kill him, I'll murder him—" She broke down in a flood of tears. Ronar said to the lady who had protested, "I trust, madam, that you will now have slightly greater confidence in my judgment." She blushed and subsided. Ronar went on with the testing. Ninety percent of the cakes he was able to discard at once, from some fault in the raw materials used or in the method of baking. Eleven cakes survived the first elimination contest. He went over them again, more slowly this time. When he had completed the second round of tests, only three were left. Number 17 belonged to Mrs. Cabanis. Number 43 had been made by the man who had argued with his wife. Number 64 was the product of the young bride, whom he had still not seen. Ronar paused. "My sense of taste is somewhat fatigued. I shall have to ask for a short recess before proceeding further." There was a sigh from the audience. The tension was not released, it was merely relaxed for a short interval. Ronar said to the chairman, "I should like a few moments of fresh air. That will restore me. Do you mind?" "Of course not, Mr. Ronar." He went outside. Seen through the thin layer of air which sur­rounded the group of buildings, and the plastic bubble which kept the air from escaping into space, the stars were brilliant and peaceful. The sun, far away, was like a father star who was too kind to obliterate his children. Strange, he thought, to recall that this was his native satellite. A few years ago it had been a different world. As for himself, he could live just as well outside the bubble as in it, as well in rarefied air as in dense. Suppose he were to tear a hole in the plastic-- Forbidden thoughts. He checked himself, and concentrated on the three cakes and the three contestants. "You aren't supposed to let personal feelings interfere. You aren't even supposed to know who baked those cakes. But you know, all right. And you can't keep personal feelings from influencing your judgment. "Any one of these cakes is good enough to win. Choose whichever you please, and no one will have a right to criticize. To which are you going to award the prize? "Number 17? Mrs. Cabanis is, as one of the other women has so aptly termed her, a bitch on wheels. If she wins, she'll be insuf­ferable. And she'll probably make her husband suffer. Not that he doesn't deserve it. Still, he thought he was doing me a favor. Will I be doing him a favor if I have his wife win? "Number 64, now, is insufferable in her own right. That loving conversation with her husband would probably disgust even human ears. On the other hand, there is this to be said for her winning, it will make the other women furious. To think that a young snip, just married, without real experience in homemaking, should walk away with a prize of this kind! "Ah, but if the idea is to burn them up, why not give the prize to Number 43? They'd be ready to drop dead with chagrin. To think that a mere man should beat them at their own specialty! They'd never be able to hold their heads up again. The man wouldn't feel too happy about it, either. Yes, if it's a matter of getting hack at these humans for the things they've clone to me, if it's a question of showing them what I really think of them, Num­ber 43 should get it. "On the other hand, I'm supposed to be a model of fairness. That's why I got the job in the first place. Remember, Ronar? Come on, let's go in and try tasting them again. Eat a mouthful of each cake, much as you hate the stuff. Choose the best on its merits." They were babbling when he walked in, but the babbling stopped quickly. The chairman said, "Are we ready, Mr. Ronar?" "All ready." The three cakes were placed before him. Slowly he took a mouth­ful of Number 1 Slowly he chewed it and swallowed it. Number 43 followed, then Number 64. After the third mouthful, he stood lost in thought. One was practically as good as another. He could still choose which he pleased. The assemblage had quieted down. Only the people most con­cerned whispered nervously. Mrs. Cabanis, to her psychologist husband: "If I don't win, it'll be your fault. I'll pay you back for this." The good doctor's fault? Yes, you could figure it that way if you wanted to. If not for Dr. Cabanis, Ronar wouldn't be the judge. If Ronar weren't the judge, Mrs. C. would win, she thought. Hence it was all her husband's fault. Q.E.D. The male baker to his wife: "If he gives the prize to me, I'll brain him. I should never have entered this." "It's too late to worry now." "I could yell `Fire,' " he whispered hopefully. "I could create a panic that would empty the hall. And then I'd destroy my cake." "Don't be foolish. And stop whispering." The young post-honeymooning husband: "You're going to win, dear; I can feel it in my bones." "Oh, Greg, please don't try to fool me. I've resigned myself to losing." "You won't lose." "I'm afraid. Put your arm around me, Greg. Hold me tight. Will you still love me if I lose?" "Ummm." He kissed her shoulder. "You know, I didn't fall in love with you for your cooking, sweetheart. You don't have to bake any cakes for me. You're good enough to eat yourself." "He's right," thought Ronar, as he stared at her. "The man's right. Not in the way he means, but he's right." And suddenly, for one second of decision, Ronar's entire past seemed to flash through his mind. The young bride never knew why she won first prize. Country Doctor He had long resigned himself to thinking that opportunity had passed him by for life. Now, when it struck so unex­pectedly and so belatedly, he wasn't sure that it was wel­come. He had gone to sleep early, after an unusually hectic day. As if the need for immunizing against the threat of an epidemic hadn't been enough, he had also had to treat the usual aches and pains, and to deliver one baby, plus two premature Marsopolis calves. Even as he pulled the covers over himself, the phone was ringing, but he let Maida answer it. Nothing short of a genuine first-class emergency was going to drag him out of the house again before morning if he could help it. Evidently the call wasn't that important, for Maida hadn't come in to bother him about it, and his last feeling, before dropping off to sleep, was one of gratitude for her common sense. He wasn't feeling grateful when the phone rang again. He awoke with a start. The dark of night still lay around the house, and from alongside him came the sound of his wife's slow breathing. In the next room, one of the kids, he couldn't tell which, said drowsily, "Turn off the alarm." Evidently the sound of the ringing hadn't produced com­plete wakefulness. While he lay there, feeling too heavy to move, Maida moaned slightly in her sleep, and he said to himself, "If that's old Bender, calling about his constipation again, I'll feed him dynamite pills." Then he reached over to the night table and forced himself to pick up the phone. "Who is it?" "Doctor Meltzer?" He recognized the hoarse and excited tones of Tom Linton, the city peace officer. "You better get over here right away!" "What is it, Tom? And where am I supposed to get?" "Over at the space port. Ship out of control—almost ran into Phobos coming down—and it landed with a crash. They need you fast." "I'm coming." The sleep was out of his eyes now. He grabbed his emergency equipment, taking along a plentiful supply of antibiotics and adjustable bandages. There was no way of knowing how many men had been hurt, and he had better be ready to treat an entire crew. Outside the house, his bicar was waiting for him. He tossed in his equipment and hopped in after it. A throw of the switch brought in full broadcast power, and a fraction of a second later he had begun to skim over the smooth path that led over the farmland reclaimed from the desert. The space port was less than twenty miles away, and it took him no more than ten minutes to get there. As he approached, the light blinked green at an intersection. Ah, he thought, one advantage of being a country doctor with a privileged road is that you always have the right of way. Are there any other advantages? None that you can think of offhand. You go through college with a brilliant record, you dream of helping humanity, of doing research in medicine, of making discoveries that will lengthen human life and lend it a little added happiness. And then, somehow, you find yourself trapped. The frontier outpost that's supposed to be the steppingstone to bigger things turns out to be a lifetime job. You find that your most important patients are not people, but food-animals. On Mars there are plenty of men and women, but few cows and sheep. Learn to treat them, and you really amount to something. Save a cow, and the news gets around faster than if you saved a man. And so, gradually, the animals begin to take more and more of your time, and you become known and liked in the community. You marry, you have children, you slip into a routine that dulls the meaning of the fast-hurrying days. You reach fifty—and you realize suddenly that life has passed you by. Half your alloted hundred years are gone, you can't tell where. The opportunities that once beckoned so brightly have faded in the distance. What do you have to show for what the years have taken? One wife, one boy, one girl— A surge of braking-power caught him from the direction of the space port. The sudden deceleration brought him out of his musings to realize that the entire area was brightly lit up. A huge ship lay across the middle of the field. Its length was at least a thousand feet, and he knew that there must be more than two dozen men in its crew. He hoped that none had been killed. "Doc!" Tom was rushing over to him. "How many hurt, Tom?" "Our injuries are all minor, Doctor," said a sharp voice. "Nothing that I can't handle well enough myself." As he stared at the man in the gold-trimmed uniform who was standing alongside Tom, he had a feeling of disappointment. If there were no serious injuries, what was the rush all about? Why hadn't they telephoned him while he was riding over, told him there was no need of him, let him get back to bed? "I thought there was a serious crash." "The crash was nothing, Doctor. Linton, here, was excited by our near-miss of Phobos. But we've no time to waste discussing that fact. I understand, Doctor Meltzer, that you're a first-class vet." He flushed. "I hope you didn't drag me out of bed to treat a sick dog. I'm not sentimental about ship's pets—" "This is no pet. Come along, and I'll show you." He followed silently as the Captain led the way up the ramp and into the ship. Inside the vessel, there were no indications of any disorder caused by the crash. One or two of the men were bandaged around the head, but they seemed perfectly capable of getting around and doing their work. He and the Captain were on a moving walkway now, and for three hundred feet they rode swiftly along it to­gether, toward the back of the ship. Then the Captain stepped off, and Dr. Meltzer followed suit. When he caught sight of the thing that was waiting for him, he jaw dropped. Almost the entire stern of the ship, about one third its length, was occupied by a great reddish creature that lay there quietly like an overgrown lump of flesh taken from some giant's butcher shop. A transparent panel walled it off from the rest of the ship. Through the panel Dr. Meltzer could see the thirty-foot-wide slit that marked the mouth. Above that was a cluster of breathing pores, look­ing like gopher holes, and above these was a semicircle of six great eyes, half closed and dulled as if with pain. He had never seen anything like it before. "My God, what it it?" "For lack of a better name, we call it a space-cow. Actually, it doesn't inhabit free space—we picked it up on Ganymede as a matter of fact—and as you can see, it doesn't resemble a cow in the least." "Is that supposed to be my patient?" "That's it, Doctor." He laughed, with more anger than amusement. "I haven't the slightest idea what that behemoth is like and what's wrong with it. How do you expect me to treat it?" "That's up to you. Now, wait a minute, Doctor, before you blow up. This thing is sick. It isn't eating. It hardly moves. And it's been getting worse almost from the time we left Ganymede. We meant to land at Marsopolis and have it treated there, but we overshot the place and when something went wrong with our drive we had no choice but to come down here." "Don't they have any doctors to spare from town?" "They're no better than you are. I mean that, Doctor. The vets they have in Marsopolis are used to treating pets for a standard series of diseases, and they don't handle animals as big as the ones you do. And they don't meet the kind of emergencies you do, either. You're as good a man as we can get." "And I tell you, I don't know a thing about this overgrown hunk of protein." "Then you'll just have to find out about it. We've radioed Earth, and hope to be getting some information soon from some of their zoo directors. Meanwhile—" The crewmen were bringing over what appeared to be a diver's uniform. "What's this?" he asked suspiciously. "Something for you to wear. You're going to go down into this animal." "Into that mass of flesh?" For a moment horror left him with his mouth open. Then anger took over. "Like hell I am." "Look, Doctor, it's necessary. We want to keep this beast alive—for scientific purposes, as well as possible value as a food animal. And how can we keep it alive unless we learn something about it?" "There's plenty we can learn without going into it. Plenty of tests we can make first. Plenty of—" He caught himself abruptly because he was talking nonsense and he knew it. You could take the thing's tempera­ture—but what would the figure you got tell you? What was normal temperature for a space-cow? What was normal blood pressure—provided the creature had blood? What was normal heartbeat—assuming there was a heart? Presumably the thing had teeth, a bony skeleton—but how to learn where and what they were? You couldn't X-ray a mass of flesh like this—not with any equipment he had ever seen, even in the best-equipped office. There were other, even more disquieting ways in which he was ignorant. What kind of digestive juices did the thing have? Suppose he did go down in a divers uniform —would the juices dissolve it? Would they dissolve the oxygen lines, the instruments he used to look around and probe the vast inside of the beast? He expressed his doubts to the Captain, and the latter said, "These suits have been tested, and so have the lines. We know that they can stand a half hour inside without being dissolved away. If they start to go, you'll radio to us, and we'll pull you up." "Thanks. How do I know that once the suit starts to go, it won't rip? How do I know that the juices simply won't eat my skin away?" There was no answer to that. You just didn't know, and you had to accept your ignorance. Even while he was objecting, Dr. Meltzer began putting on the suit. It was thin and light, strong enough to withstand several atmospheres of pressure, and at the same time not so clumsy as to hamper his movements considerably. Scaled pockets carried an assortment of in­struments and supplies. Perfect two-way communication would make the exchange of ideas—such as they might be—as easy as if the person he was talking to were face to face with him. With the suit came a pair of fragile-looking gloves that left his hands almost as free as if they were bare. But the apparent fragility was misleading. Mechanical strength was there. But what about resistance to biological action? The question kept nagging him. You can't know, he told himself. About things like that you take a chance. You take a chance and hope that if anything goes wrong, they'll pull you up before the juices have time to get working on you. They had everything in readiness. Two of the other men were also wearing uniforms like his own, and when he had put his on, and tested it, the Captain gave the signal, and they all went into a small airlock. The door sealed behind them, a door in front opened. They were in the chamber where the great beast lay and quivered dully as if in giant pain. They tied strong thin plastic cords around Doctor Meltzer's waist, tested the oxygen lines. Then they put a ladder up in front of the beast's face. Doctor Meltzer had a little trouble breathing, but it was not because of anything wrong with the oxygen supply. That was at the right pressure and humidity, and it was mixed with the correct amount of inert gases. It was merely the thought of going down into the creature's belly that constricted his throat, the idea of going into a strange and terrible world so dif­ferent from his own, of submitting to unimaginable dangers. He said hoarsely into the radio speaker, "How do I get in anyway, knock? The mouth's at least forty feet off the ground. And it's closed. You've got to open it, Captain. Or do you expect me to pry it open myself?" The two men with him stretched out a plastic ladder. In the low gravity of Mars, climbing forty feet was no problem. Dr. Meltzer began to pull his way up. As he went higher, he noticed that the great mouth was slowly opening. One of the men had poked the creature with an electric prod. Dr. Meltzer reached the level of the low jaw, and with the fascinated fear of a bird staring at a snake, gazed at the great opening that was going to devour him. Inside there was a gray and slippery surface which caught the beam of his flashlight and reflected it back and forth until the rays faded away. Fifty feet beyond the opening, the passage made a slow turn to one side. What lay ahead, he couldn't guess. The sensible thing was to go in at once, but he couldn't help hesitating. Suppose the jaws closed just as he got between them? He'd be crushed like an eggshell. Suppose that throat constricted with the irritation he caused it? That would crush him too. He recalled suddenly an ancient fable about a man who had gone into a whale's belly. What was the man's name, now? Daniel—no, he had only gone into a den of lions. Job—wrong again. Job had been afflicted with boils, the victim of staphylo­cocci at the other end of the scale of size. Jonah, that was it. Jonah, the man whose name was a symbol among the superstitious for bad luck. But a scientist had no time for superstition. A scientist just thrust himself forward. He stepped off the ladder into the great mouth. Beneath him, the jaw was slippery. His feet slid out from under him, and then his momentum carried him forward, and he glided smoothly down the yawning gullet. It was like going down a Martian hillside on a greased sled, the low gravity making the descent nice and easy. He noticed that the cords around his waist, as well as the oxygen lines, were descending smoothly after him. He reached the turn, threw his body away from the gray wall, and continued sliding. Another fifty feet, and he landed with a small plash in a pool of liquid. The stomach? Never mind what you called it, this was probably the beginning of a digestive tract. He'd have a chance now to see how resistant his suit was. He was immersed in the liquid now, and he sank slowly until his feet touched more solid flesh again. By the beam from his flashlight, he saw that the liquid around him was a light green. The portion of the digestive tract on which he stood was slate gray, with bright emerald streaks. A voice spoke anxiously in his ears. "Doctor Meltzer! Are you safe?" "Fine, Captain. Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here." "What's it like in there?" "I'm standing at the bottom of a pool of greenish liquid. I'm fascinated, but not greatly instructed." "See anything that might be wrong?" "How the devil would f tell right from wrong in here? I've never been in one of these beasts before. I've got sample bottles, and I'm going to fill them in various places. This is going to be sample one. You can analyze it later." "Fine, Doctor. You just keep on going." He flashed the beam around him. The liquid was churn­ing gently, possibly because of the splash he himself had made. The gray-green walls themselves were quiet, and the portion underfoot yielded slightly as he put his weight upon it, but was otherwise apparently undisturbed by his presence. He moved ahead. The liquid grew shallower, came to an end. He climbed out and stepped cautiously forward. "Doctor, what's happening?" "Nothing's happening. I'm just looking around." "Keep us informed. I don't think there's any danger, but—" "But in case there is, you want the next man to know what to watch out for? All right, Captain." "Lines all right?" "They're fine." He took another step forward. "The ground—I suppose I can call it the ground—is getting less slippery. Easier to walk on. Walls about twenty feet apart here. No sign of macroscopic flora or fauna. No artifacts to indicate intelligent life." The Captain's voice sounded pained. "Don't let your sense of humor carry you away, Doctor. This is important. Maybe you don't realize exactly how important, but—" He interrupted. "Hold it, Captain, here's something interesting. A big reddish bump, about three feet across, in the gray-green wall." "What is it?" "Might be a tumor. I'll slice some tissue from the wall itself. That's sample number two. Tissue from the tumor, sample number three." The wall quivered almost imperceptibly as he sliced into it. The fresh-cut surface was purple, but it slowly turned red again as the internal atmosphere of the beast got at it. "Here's another tumor, like the first, this time on the other side of the wall. And here are a couple more. I'm leaving them alone. The walls are getting narrower. There's still plenty of room to walk, but—wait a minute, I take that back. There's some kind of valve ahead of me. It's opening and closing spasmodically." "Can you get through?" "I'd hate to take a chance. And even if I did make it while it was open, it could crush the oxygen lines when it closed." "Then that's the end of the road?" "I don't know. Let me think." He stared at the great valve. It moved rapidly, opening and closing in a two-second rhythm. Probably a valve separating one part of the digestive system from another, he thought, like the human pylorus. The green-streaked gray flesh seemed totally unlike human muscle, but all the same it appeared to serve a similar function. Maybe the right kind of drug would cause muscular relaxation. He pulled a large hypodermic syringe from one of the sealed pockets of his diver's uniform. He plunged the needle quickly into the edge of the valve as it paused for a fraction of a second before closing, shot a pint of drug solution into the flesh, and ripped the needle out again. The valve closed once more, but more slowly. It opened, closed again, opened once more—and stayed open. How long before it recovered, and shut off his retreat? He didn't know. But if he wanted to find out what was on the other side, he'd have to work fast. He plunged forward, almost slipping in his eagerness, and leaped through the motionless valve. Then he called up to tell the Captain what he had done. The Captain's voice was anxious. "I don't know whether you ought to risk it, Doctor." "I'm down here to learn things. I haven't learned much yet. By the way, the walls are widening out again. And there's another pool of liquid ahead. Blue liquid, this time." "Are you taking a sample?" "I'm a sampler from way back, Captain." He waded into the blue pond, filled his sample bottle, and put it into one of his pockets. Suddenly, in front of him something broke the surface of the pond, then dived down again. He came to a full stop. "Hold it, Captain. There seems to be fauna." "What? Something alive?" "Very much alive." "Be careful, Doctor. I think there's a gun in one of the pockets of that uniform. Use it if necessary." "A gun? Don't be cruel, Captain. How'd you like to have somebody shooting off guns inside you?" "Be careful, man!" "I'll use my hypodermic as a weapon." But the creature, whatever it was, did not approach him again, and he waded further into the blue pool. When his eyes were below the surface of the liquid, he saw the thing moving again. "Looks like an overgrown tadpole, about two feet long." "Is it coming close?" "No, it's darting away from me. And there's another one. I think the light bothers it." "Any signs that the thing is dangerous?" "I can't tell. It may be a parasite of the big creature, or it may be something that lives in symbiosis with it." "Stay away from it, Doctor. No use risking your life for nothing." A trembling voice said, "Larry! Are you all right?" "Maida! What are you doing here?" "I woke up when you left. And then I had trouble going to sleep again." "But why did you come to the space port?" "Ships began to flash by overhead, and I began to wonder what had happened. So I called up—and they told me." "Ships overhead?" The Captain's voice cut in again. "The news services, Doctor. This case has aroused great interest. I didn't want to tell you before, but don't be surprised if you come up to find yourself famous." "Never mind the news services. Have you heard from Earth yet?" "No messages from Earth. We did hear from the curator of the Marsopolis Zoo." "What did he say?" "He never even heard of a space-cow, and he has no suggestions to make." "That's fine. By the way, Captain, are there any photographers around from those news services?" "Half a dozen. Still, motion picture, television—" "How about sending them down inside to take a few pictures?" There was a moment of silence. Then the Captain's voice again: "I don't think they can go down for a while yet. Maybe later." "Why can't they go down now? I'd like to have some company. If the beast's mouth is open—" A disquieting thought struck him. "Say, it is open, isn't it?" The Captain's voice sounded tense. "Now, don't get upset, Doctor, we're doing all we can!" "You mean it's closed?" "Yes, it's closed. I didn't want to tell you this, but the mouth closed unexpectedly, and then, when we did have the idea of sending a photographer down inside, we couldn't get it open again. Apparently the creature has adapted to the effects of the electric shock." "There must be some way of getting it open again." "Of course there's a way, There's always a way. Don't worry, Doctor, we're working on it. We'll find it." "But the oxygen—" "The lines are strong, and the mouth isn't closed tight enough to pinch them off. You can breathe all right, can't you?" "Now that I think of it, I can. Thanks for telling me." "You see, Doctor, it isn't so bad." "It's perfectly lovely. But what happens if my uniform or the oxygen lines start to dissolve?" "We'll pull you out. We'll do something to open the mouth. Just don't get caught behind that valve, Doctor." "Thanks for the advice. I don't know what I'd do without it, Captain." He felt a sudden surge of anger. If there was one thing he hated, it was good advice, given smugly when the giver could stand off to one side, without sharing the danger of the person he was helping. Don't let this happen, don't get caught here, take care of yourself. But you were down here to do a job, and so far you hadn't done it. You hadn't learned a thing about what made this monstrous creature tick. And the chances were that you wouldn't learn, either. The way to examine a beast was from the outside, not from within. You watched it eat, you studied the transfer of the food from one part of the body to another, you checked on the circulation of the body fluids, using radioactive tracers if no other methods offered, you dissected specimens of typical individuals. The Captain should have had a few scientists aboard, and they should have done a few of these things instead of just sitting there staring at the beast. But that would have made things too easy. No, they had to wait for you to come aboard, and then send you deliberately sliding down into the guts of an animal you didn't know anything about, in the hope of having a miracle happen to you. Maybe they thought a loop of intestine or some gland of internal secretion would come over to you and say, "I'm not working right. Fix me, and everything will be fine." Another of the tadpole-like creatures was swimming over toward him, approaching slowly, the forepart twitching like the nose of a curious dog. Then, like the others, the creature turned and darted away. "Maybe that's the cause," he thought. "Maybe that's the parasite that's causing the trouble." Only—it might just as well be a creature necessary to the larger creature's health. Again and again you were faced with the same problem. Down here you were in a world you knew nothing about. And when everything was so strange to you—what was normal, and what wasn't? When in doubt, he decided, move on. He moved. The blue pool was shallow, and once more he came up on what he decided to call dry ground. Once more the walls grew narrow again. After a time he could reach out and touch the walls on either side of him at the same time. He flashed his light into the narrow passage, and saw that a dozen yards ahead of him it seemed to come to an end. "Blind alley," he thought. "Time to turn back." The Captain's voice came to him again, "Doctor, is everything all right?" "Beautiful. I've had a most interesting tour. By the way, did you get the creature's mouth open yet?" "We're still working on it." "I wish you luck. Maybe when those reports from Earth come in—" "They've come. None of the curators knows anything about space-cows. For some reason, the electric shock method doesn't work any more, and we're trying all sorts of other stimuli." "I take it that nothing is effective." "Not yet. One of the photo service men suggested we use a powerful mechanical clamp to pull the jaws open. We're having one flown over." "Use anything," he said fervently. "But for God's sake, get that mouth open!" Dr. Meltzer cursed the photo service people, to whom he meant nothing more than a series of colored lines in space. Then he added an unkind word or two for the Captain, who had got him into this mess, and started back. The tadpole creatures seemed to be interested in his progress. They came swarming around him, and now he could see that there were almost a dozen of them. They moved with quick flips of their tails, like the minnows he had once seen back on Earth, where he had attended med­ical school. Between each pair of flips there was a mo­mentary pause, and when they came close he was able to get a reasonably good look at them. He was surprised to see that they had two rows of eyes each. Were the eyes functional or vestigial? In the former case, they must spend some part of their life cycle outside the host creature, in places where they had need of the sense of sight. In the latter case, they were at least des­cended from outside creatures. Maybe I'll try to catch one of them, he thought. Once I get it outside I can give it a real examination. Once I get it outside, he repeated. Provided I get outside myself. He waded through the pond again. As he reached the shallow part of the blue liquid, a voice came to him—this time his wife's voice. "Larry, are you all right?" "Doing fine. How are the kids?" "They're with me. They woke up during the excitement, and I brought them along." "You didn't tell me that before!" "I didn't want to upset you." "Oh, it doesn't upset me in the least. Nothing like a nice family picnic. But how do you expect them to go to school in the morning?" "Oh, Larry, what difference does it make if they miss school for once? A chance to be in on something like this happens once in a lifetime." "That's a little too often to suit me. Well, now that I know they're here, let me talk to them." Evidently they had been waiting for the chance, for Jerry's voice came at once. "Hiya, Dad." "Hiya, Jerry. Having a good time?" "Swell. You oughtta be out here, Dad. There are a lot of people. They're treatin' us swell." Martia cut in. "Mom, he isn't letting me talk. I want to talk to Daddy too." "Let her talk, Jerry. Go ahead, Martia. Say something to Daddy." A sudden blast almost knocked out his eardrum. "Dad, can you hear me?" Martia screamed. "Can you hear me, Dad?" "I can hear you, and so can these animals. Not so loud, sweetheart." "Gee, Dad, you oughtta see all the people. They took pictures of me and Mom. Oh, we're so thrilled!" "They took pictures of me too, Dad," said Jerry. "They're sending the pictures all over. To Earth and Venus, and everywhere. We're gonna be on television too, Dad. Isn't it exciting?" "It's terrific, Martia. You don't know what this does for my morale." "Aw, all she thinks about is pictures. Mom, make her get away from the microphone, or I'll push her away." "You've had your chance, Martia. Let Jerry talk again." "You know what, Dad? Everybody says you're gonna be famous. They say this is the only animal of its kind ever discovered. And you're the only person ever went into it. Can I go down there too, Dad?" "No!" he yelled. "Okay, okay. Say, Dad know what? If you bring it back alive, they're gonna take it to Earth, and put it in a special zoo of its own." "Thank them for me. Look, Jerry, did they get the animal's mouth open yet?" "Not yet, Dad, but they're bringing in a great big machine." The Captain's voice again: "We'll have the mouth open soon, Doctor. Where are you now?" "Approaching the valve again. Having you heard anything that could be useful? Maybe some explorer or hunter might be able to tell you something about space-cows—" "Sorry, Doctor. Nobody knows anything about space-cows." "That's what you said before. All right, Captain, stand by for further news. I've got a shoal of these tadpole beasts in attendance. Let's see what happens now." "They're not attacking, are they?" "Not yet." "You feel all right otherwise?" "Fine. A little short of breath, though. That may be the result of tension. And a little hungry. I wonder how this beast would taste raw—my God!" The Captain asked anxiously, "What is it?" "That valve I paralyzed. It's working normally once more!" "You mean it's opening and closing?" "The same rhythm as before. And every time it closes, it squeezes those oxygen tubes. That's why I sometimes feel short of breath. I have to get out of here!" "Do you have enough drug to paralyze the valve again?" "No, I don't. Keep quiet, Captain, let me figure this out." "That valve I paralyzed. It's working normally once more!" place to take off from. He might have dived safely through the opening during the near-second when the muscles were far apart. But there was no place for a take-off. He had to approach up a slippery slope, hampered by uniform and lines. And if he misjudged the right moment to go through, he'd be caught when the valve closed again. He stood there motionless for a moment, sweat pouring down his forehead and into his eyes. Damn it, he thought, I can't even wipe it away. I've got to tackle this thing half blind. Through one partially fogged eyeplate he noticed the tadpole creatures approaching more closely. Were they vicious after all? Were they coming closer because they sensed that he was in danger? Were they closing in for the kill? One of them plunged straight at him, and involuntarily he ducked. The thing turned barely aside at the last mo­ment, raced past him, slithered out of the blue liquid, and squirmed up the slope toward the valve. Unexpectedly, the valve opened to twice its previous width, and the creature plunged through without trouble. "Doctor Meltzer? Are you still all right?" "I'm alive, if that interests you. Listen, Captain, I'm going to try getting through that valve. One of the tadpole beasts just did it, and the valve opened a lot wider to let it through." "Just how do you expect to manage?" "I'll try grabbing one of the beasts and hitch-hike through. I just hope it isn't vicious, and doesn't turn on me." But the tadpole creatures wouldn't let themselves be grabbed. In this, their home territory, they moved a great deal faster than he did, and even though they didn't seem to be using their eyes to see with, they evaded his grasp with great skill. At last he gave up the attempt and climbed out of the blue pool. The creatures followed him. One of the biggest of them suddenly dashed forward. Sensing what the thing was going to do, Dr. Meltzer hur­ried after it. It scurried up the slope, and plunged through the valve. The valve opened wide. Dr. Meltzer, racing desperately forward, threw himself into the opening. The valve paused, then snapped at him. He felt it hit his heel. The next moment he was gasping for breath. The oxy­gen lines had become tangled. He fought frenziedly to untwist them, and failed. Then he realized that he was trying to do too much. All he needed to do was loosen the knot and straighten out the kinks. By the time he finally succeeded, he was seeing black spots in front of his eyes. "Doctor Meltzer, Doctor Meltzer!" The sound had been in his ears for some time. "Still alive," he gasped. "Thank God! We're going to try to open the mouth now, Doctor. If you hurry forward, you'll be in a position to be pulled out." "I'm hurrying. By the way, those tadpoles are still with me. They trailing along as if they'd found a long-lost friend. I feel like a pie-eyed piper." "I just hope they don't attack." "You're not hoping any harder than I am." He could catch his breath now, and with the oxygen lines free, the perspiration that had dimmed his sight slow­ly evaporated. He caught sight of one of the reddish tumors he had noticed on his forward passage. "May as well be hung for a sheep as a lamp," he mur­mured. "It would take an axe really to chop that tumor out, but I may as well slice into it and see what I can learn." From one of his pockets he took a sharp oversize scalpel, and began to cut around the edges. The tumor throbbed convulsively. "Well, well, I may have something here," he said, with a surgeon's pleasure. He dug deeper. The tumor erupted. Great gobs of reddish liquid spurted out, and with one of them came another of the tadpole creatures, a small one, half the average size of those he had first encountered. "Glory be," he muttered. "So that's the way they grow." The creature sensed him and darted aside, in the di­rection of the valve. As it approached, the open valve froze in place, and let the small creature through, further into the host, without enlarging. Then the valve began to close again. They're adapted to each other, he thought. Probably symbiosis, rather then a one-sided parasitism. He moved upwards, toward the greenish liquid. An earthquake struck. The flesh heaved up beneath his feet, tossing him head over heels into the pool. The first shock was followed by a second and third. A tidal wave hit him, and carried him to the side of the pool. He landed with a thud against the hard side and bounced back. The sides began to constrict, hemming him in. "Captain!" he yelled. "What's going on out there? What are you doing to the beast?" "Trying to pry open its mouth. It doesn't seem to like the idea. It's threshing around against the walls of the ship." "For God's sake, cut it out! It's giving me a beating in here." They must have halted their efforts at once, for immedi­ately afterwards the beast's movements became less convul­sive. But it was some time before the spasmodic quivering of the side walls came to an end. Dr. Meltzer climbed out of the pool of liquid, making an automatic and entirely useless gesture to wipe the new perspiration from his forehead. "Is it better in there, Doctor?" "It's better. Don't try that again," he panted. "We have to get the mouth open some way." "Try a bigger electric shock." "If you want us to. But it may mean another beating for you, Doctor." "Then wait a minute. Wait till I get near the upper part of the gullet." "Whenever you say. Just tell us when you're ready." Better be ready soon, he thought. My light's beginning to dim. When it goes out altogether, I'll probably be in a real panic. I'll be yelling for him to do anything, just to get me out of there. And what about the suit and the oxygen lines? I think the digestive fluid's beginning to affect them. It's hard to be sure, now that the light's weakening, but they don't have the clear transparent look they had at first. And when they finally go, I go with them. He tried to move forward faster, but the surface underfoot was slimy, and when he moved too hastily, he slipped. The lines were getting tangled too. Now that the creature's mouth was closed, it was no use tugging at the cord around his waist. That wouldn't get him up. "Doctor Meltzer!" He didn't answer. Instead, he pulled out his lancet and cut the useless cords away. The oxygen lines too were a nuisance, in constant danger of kinking and tangling, now that they were no longer taut. But at least the gas was still flowing through them and would continue to flow—until the digestive fluid ate through. The tadpole creatures seemed to have developed a positive affection for him. They were all around him, not close enough for him to grab them, but too close for com­fort. At any moment they might decide to take a nip out of his suit or an oxygen line. And with the plastic already weakened, even a slight tear might be fatal. He reached the sharp slope that signified the gullet. "Dr. Meltzer?" "What do you want?" "Why didn't you answer?" "I was busy. I cut the cords away from around my waist. Now I'm going to try climbing up inside this thing's throat." "Shall we try that sharp electric shock?" "Go ahead." He had a pair of small surgical clamps, and he took one in each hand. The flashlight he put in a holder at his waist. Then, getting down on all fours, he began to crawl up, digging each pair of clamps into the flesh in turn to give him a grip. A slow wave ran away in both directions every time he inserted one of the pairs of clamps into the flesh, but otherwise the beast didn't seem to mind too much. He was about halfway up, when the earthquakes began again. The first one sent him tumbling head over heels down the slope. The others added some slight injury to the insult, knocking him painfully against the walls. They must have used a powerful electric jolt, for some of it was transmitted through the creature to him, making his skin tingle. He hadn't lost his flashlight, but by now it was exceedingly dim, and shed only a feeble circle of light. Far ahead of him, where the mouth was to open, was blackness. "No luck, Captain?" "No luck, Doctor. We'll try again." "Don't. You just make things worse." "Larry, were you hurt? Larry—" "Don't bother me now, Maida," he said roughly. "I have to figure out a way to get out." A faint hiss came from the oxygen line. A leak. Time was growing short. The tadpole creatures were swimming around faster now. They too must have been upset by the shock. One of them darted ahead of him, and wriggled ahead until it was lost in blackness. That seems to be trying to get out too, he told himself. Maybe we can work this together. There must be some way, something to get this creature to open its mouth. Maybe the Captain can't do it from outside, but I'm in here, where the beast's most sensitive. I can hit it, slash at it, tickle it— There's a thought. Tickle it. It's a monster, and it'll take some monstrous tickling, but sooner or later, something should affect it. He stamped hard with his foot. No effect. He took his large lancet from his pocket and slashed viciously with it. A shudder ran through the flesh, but that was all. And then he had an idea. That green liquid undoubtedly contained hormones. Hormones, enzymes, co-enzymes, antibiotics, biological chemicals of all kinds. Stuff to which some tissues would be adapted and some would not. And those that weren't would react violently. He turned back, filled his hypodermic syringe with the greenish liquid, and ran forward again. The light was almost gone by now, and the hissing from the oxygen line was growing ominously, but he climbed forward as far as he could before plunging the hypodermic in and injecting its contents. The creature heaved. He dropped hypodermic, light, and clamps, and let the huge shuddering take him where it would. First it lifted him high. Then it let him fall suddenly—not backwards, but in the same place. Two of the tadpole beasts were thrown against him. Then he was lifted way up again, and this time forward. A huge cavern opened before him. Light bathed the gray surface and he was vomited out. The light begun to flicker, and he had time for one last thought. Oxygen lack, he told himself. My suit's ripped, the lines have finally torn. And then blackness. When he came to, Maida was at his side. He could see that she had been crying. The Captain stood a little fur­ther off, his face drawn, but relieved. "Larry, dear, are you all right? We thought you'd never get out." "I'm fine." He sat up and saw his two children, standing anxious and awestricken on the other side of the bed. Their silence showed how strongly they had been affected. "I hope you kids didn't worry too much about me." "Of course I didn't worry," said Jerry bravely. "I knew you were smart, Dad. I knew you'd think of a way to get out." "While we're on the subject," interposed the Captain, "What was the way out?" "I'll tell you later. How's the patient?" "Doing fine. Seems to have recovered completely." "How many of the tadpoles came out with me?" "About six. We're keeping them in the same low-oxygen atmosphere as the creature itself. We're going to study them. We figure that if they're parasites—" "They're not parasites. I finally came to a conclusion about them. They're the young." "What?" "The young. If you take good care of them, they'll eventually grow to be as big as the mother-monster you've got in the ship." "Good God, where will we keep them?" "That's your worry. Maybe you'd better expand that zoo you're preparing. What you'll do for money to feed them, though, I don't know." "But what—" "The trouble with that monster—its `illness'—was merely that it was gravid." "Gravid?" "That means pregnant," exclaimed Jerry. "I know what it means." The Captain flushed. "Look, do we have to have these kids in here while we discuss this?" "Why not? They're a doctor's children. They know what it's all about. They've seen calves and other animals being born." "Lots of times," said Martia. "Confined as it was on the ship, your beast couldn't get the exercise it needed. And the young couldn't get themselves born." "But that was the digestive tract you went down—" "What of it? Are all animals born the same way? Ask the average kid where a baby grows, and he'll tell you that it's in the stomach." "Some kids are dopes," said Jerry. "They wouldn't be in this case. What better place to get a chance at the food the mother eats, in all stages from raw to completely digested? All that beast needed to give birth was a little exercise. You gave it some from the outside, but not enough. I finished the job by injecting some of its own digestive fluid into the flesh. That caused a pretty little reaction." The Captain scratched his head. "Doctor, you did a good job. How would you like to take care of that beast permanently? I could recommend you—" "To go down inside that monster again? No, thanks. From now on, I treat nothing but small monsters. Sheep, cows—and human beings." There was a pounding of feet in the hallway. Then the door swung in, violently. Flashbulbs that gave invisible light began to pop with inaudible bursts of high-frequency sound. Cameras pointed menacingly at him and sent his image winging to Earth and far-off planets. Reporters be­gan to fire their questions. "My God," he muttered wearily, "who let these ani­mals in here? They're worse than the ones I met inside the blue pool." "Be nice to them, dear," chided Maida gently. "They're turning you into a great man." Then Maida and Jerry and Martia grouped themselves around him, and the cameras caught them too. The proud look on their faces was something to see. And he realized that he was glad for their sake. Opportunity had knocked, and when he had opened the door to it, it had proved to be an exacting guest. Still, he hadn't been a bad host—not a bad host at all, he thought. And slowly his features relaxed into a tired and immediately famous grin. RHODA had no trouble telling light from dark in spite of the weakness of her eyes. She knew at once when she opened them that it was still what her Mommie and Daddie would have called the middle of the night. That is, it was an hour before the alarm clock would .go off and wake them up. And Rhoda had to go to the bathroom. She swung her feet over the side of the bed, knocking to the floor, which was already carpeted with her playmates, another of her numerous dolls. Fortunately, it was a soft doll and it landed silently without the heavy thump that might have awakened Georgie. Georgie was only three, and once he got up Daddie and Mommie might as well get up, too, because Georgie didn't believe in letting people waste their lives sleeping. Georgie also didn't believe in bathrooms, Rhoda thought smugly. At least he didn't believe in them much. She padded silently toward the door without bothering to find her slippers. The hallway was very black, but she knew the way and didn't slow up until she reached the bathroom. There, at the door, she stopped. Someone was up. The light wasn't on, but the water was running and she knew that Mommie and Daddie never left it running when they went to bed. One of them was in there. She pushed open the door and called softly, "Mommie?" The water stopped running. No one was there. That's funny, she thought. I musta been 'magining things. I musta been dreaming—can you dream when you're awake? I'll have to ask Mommie. She was still musing when she padded back to her own room, taking care not to trip over the dolls and fuzzy animals on the floor. As she was falling asleep, she thought she heard the water running again. 'Magination, she thought, drowsily. Mommie says I got a good 'magination. WHEN the alarm clock went off, she felt too sleepy to get up. So did her Mommie and Daddie, but being big people, they got up anyway. As it happened, the alarm clock had also awakened Georgie and Georgie was better than any mechanical invention when it came to making sure that nobody fell asleep again. He went whooping around the house, first as an Indian and then as a cowboy, and by the time he had shot his fifth rustler, nobody was sleepy any more. So Rhoda got up and brushed her teeth. She noticed that the walls around the washbowl were all wet, as if from a shower. When she ran into the kitchen, Mommie was already cooking breakfast. Mommie was tired, and when she smiled at Rhoda, it was almost as if she didn't mean it. As if there was no reason to smile, and it was painful to do so. Rhoda wondered why she acted that way. It seemed to her that most Mommies and Daddies did silly things, but that lately her own Mommie had taken to doing even worse things than the rest. She would start crying for no reason at all and even when all those wonderful presents started coming in—presents from people Rhoda didn't even know — she didn't get any happier. And when Rhoda had a birthday party and a Thanksgiving party and a Christmas party one right after the other, long before she had expected them, her Mommie didn't enjoy the parties at all. It was as if everything that she and everybody else did to make Rhoda happy only made her sad. Rhoda found all this hard to understand and after awhile she stopped trying. Just as she stopped trying to understand why the world seemed to get just a little darker and a little fuzzier each day, and why all the lovely dolls and animals and games that she received didn't look quite as nice and colorful and pretty as they once did. And why she couldn't go to the movies any more, to sit screaming with joy as she watched the Westerns on Saturdays. She was only seven, and these were mysteries that one had to be grown up to understand. And big people wouldn't or couldn't explain to her. Not even the doctor, who was supposed to know everything and didn't know how to stop her Mommie from crying when he examined Rhoda. Mommie said, "Did you sleep well, dear?" "Oh, yes, I slept very well. Only I hadda get up to go to the bathroom. Mommie, can a person dream when she's awake, can she, Mommie?" "Sometimes. Did you have a dream?" "I don't know. I thought I was awake, but now I'm not sure." "What did you dream, dear? Was it nice?" "It wasn't much. I thought I heard the water runnin' in the bathroom. But when I went in, it wasn't." DADDIE had come in and heard her. "You might have turned the water on yourself," he said. "Someone has been squirting it around." "It might have been Georgie," said Mommie. "Oh, no, he was asleep when I got up," Rhoda stated firmly. "Georgie doesn't like to get up to go to the bathroom." Daddie said thoughtfully, "You might have turned the water on yourself anyway. You know, Rhoda, sometimes people walk in their sleep and don't realize what they're doing. They think they're awake when they're just acting out their dreams." "How can you tell when you're awake or dreaming?" "That's a difficult question, Rhoda. There are times when you can't tell." "I wish all this were a dream," said Mommie huskily. "I wish I could just wake up—" And then she saw the way Daddie was looking at her and she stopped. Very silly, thought Rhoda. Why should anyone want to be in a dream? Dreams could be terrifying. Once, long ago, after listening to fairy tales, she had dreamed of giants and ogres and dragons, and she had been horribly frightened. But you didn't see giants and ogres and dragons when you were awake. Just their pictures in the story books and you knew they weren't real. Not really real. Rhoda ate a good breakfast, and Georgie half-ate his and half-washed his face in it as usual. Daddie, also as usual, gobbled his toast in a hurry, plunked down his empty coffee cup and ran off to work, while Mommie, who had no appetite, just drank a cup of coffee—terrible-tasting stuff—without sugar or anything sweet, that Rhoda had once sipped and disliked very much. Rhoda wondered whether she would have to drink coffee when she grew up. She asked her Mommie. "You'll drink whatever you please when you grow up, dear." "You know, Mommie, when I grow up I'm gonna be a cowgirl. Also a actress. Can I be both?" "Yes, dear. You can be anything you want." "And I'm gonna be a lady doctor and a nurse and a fire-engine driver and a spaceship pilot and . . ." She paused to think of all the other things she wanted to be. "When you grow up," said Mommie dully and seemed to choke. She turned her face away. That's silly, too, thought Rhoda. What's she crying about now? FORTUNATELY, her Mommie had a lot of things to do around the house, and that kept her busy and gave her less time to cry. And Rhoda went back to her bedroom and began to straighten up her dolls and fuzzy animals. One of her dolls, the very big one she had decided to call Lillian Marilyn, had a dirty face. Even Rhoda could see that there was a big smudge across her nose and cheeks. And as Lillian Marilyn had a washable skin, Rhoda decided that she might as well give her child a bath. She tucked the big doll daintily into her carriage and wheeled the carriage out into the hall toward the bathroom. When she reached the bathroom door, she could hear the water running again. She came to a stop. Not only was the water running—somebody was running, too. Rhoda could hear the sounds as if a cat were scampering all around, up the walls and over the shower fixtures and then up to the laundry dryer. With the water running. She pushed open the door. All she could see was the quick flash of a shadow. And then that disappeared and the bathroom was quiet again except for the water faucet, which gurgled calmly„ Water was splashed over every thing. There were puddles on the floor and streaks on the walls… And on the sink lay an uncapped tube of toothpaste, half empty. The new green toothpaste with the pretty chlorophyll. "My, my!" said Rhoda. "This is a mess!" She bent over the bathtub and turned on both the hot water and the cold. As the tub began to fill, she started to undress Lillian Marilyn. She left the cloth in the carriage and wrapped Lillian Marilyn in her own towel. The water in the tub was a little too cool, so she turned off the cold water faucet and let the hot run for a little, while longer. It wouldn't do for Lillian Marilyn to catch cold. After the doll had been bathed and dried, Georgie came into the bedroom to watch her being dressed. He wanted her to wear a cowboy suit, but Rhoda thought Lillian Marilyn was too young for that. She dressed the doll in a nurse's uniform instead. Georgie said, "I'm a hunner. Bang, bang!" "What are you hunting, Georgie?" "I'm hunnin' g'rillas. I saw a g'rilla inna bathroom before." "How could a gorilla get in the bathroom?" "Mommie put 'im there." "That's silly, Georgie. Mommie wouldn't do that. You got a 'magination that's even worse'n mine." "I ain't got a 'magination. He was there." "Don't lie, Georgie. Not in front of Lillian Marilyn. I don't want her to catch any bad habits." JUST then Mommie came in and asked, "Rhoda, did you give Lillian Marilyn a bath?" "Yes, Mommie, she was filthy. She always plays on the floor, so I had to get the dirt offa her. And I washed her hair with shampoo." "Well, next time, dear, please try not to splash water all over the bathroom floor." "I didn't splash water, Mommie. It was wet. The shadow splashed it." "The shadow?" "He was lettin' the water run. And usin' the green toothpaste." "It was a g'rilla," put in Georgie. "A great big g'rilla, this big." And he stretched his hands about two feet apart. "Gorillas are bigger'n that," said Rhoda. "Maybe it was a monkey." "It was a g'rilla," maintained Georgie stubbornly. "I saw 'im. He was splashin' water an' eatin' too'-paste." "Whatever it was," said Mommie, and for the first time in weeks she seemed to be smiling without trying too hard, "tell him to be neat. I don't want any gorillas making a mess of my bathroom." "I'll tell 'im, Mommie," said Georgie. But of course, thought Rhoda, Georgie wouldn't tell him. Georgie always forgot Mommie's instructions. It was up to Rhoda to tell him. She had her chance the next morning, again about an hour before the alarm clock went off. Rhoda awoke as she had done the day before, got out of bed and padded on bare feet toward the bathroom. She could hear the water running again. Was she asleep and dreaming or was she really awake? It was a little hard to tell, she thought doubtfully. But if the water stopped running before she came in, she guessed she was prob'ly asleep. Things sometimes happened awfully fast when you dreamed. When you were awake, they sort of took their time more. The water didn't stop running. She pushed open the door and there was a sudden whoosh as a shadow swept right past her face. And then the shadow was scampering around the bathroom, up and down and side to side, from laundry hamper to dryer to shower fixtures and back again, so fast that her blurred eyes couldn't keep up with it. It was not a gorilla, she thought triumphantly. It was too small to be a gorilla. 'Course it was moving too fast for her to see what it was, but when it stopped . . . It stopped in the opposite upper corner of the bathroom. There was nothing there to hold onto that Rhoda knew about, but the thing was holding on anyway, seemingly in no danger of falling. Bright flashes of light came from its eyes. Rhoda thought, It's lookin' at me just like I'm lookin' at it. Only I can't see so good any more and I can't tell just what it's like. I'll bet it's a monkey. I don't know how a monkey could have got in here, 'cause the bathroom window is closed. But it ain't a gorilla so it must be a monkey. I wonder what it's doin' up there in the corner. Gotta ask Mommie and Daddie. Maybe they know. SHE slipped out of the bathroom and down the hall to Mommie's and Daddie's bedroom. The room was quiet. All she could hear was the sound of her Daddie's rhythmic breathing. She put her hand to his shoulder. "Daddie," she whispered in the clear and piercing whisper of child. He spoke into his pillow without opening his eyes. "What'sa matter?" "It ain't a gorilla. I think it's a monkey. Please come and see." "Go away, Rhoda. Let me sleep." "All right, Daddie. But he's makin' a mess outta the bathroom again." "Tell him cut it out." He turned away from her and Rhoda thought with exasperation that grownups were always so sleepy and made such a big fuss about being awakened. Not like children, who didn't like to waste their time sleeping. Take Georgie, now—once you got him up he'd never go back to sleep. There was so much to do. Her face brightened. Why not take Georgie? He could see better than she could and tell her what the monkey was doing. She hurried back to her own room and whispered, "Georgie!" Georgie just turned away from her in his sleep and tried to dig his face into the wall. She began to shake him. "Georgie, wake up! You wanna see the gorilla?" "Don' wanna see nuthin'." "It's the gorilla in the bathroom. Only it ain't a gorilla, it's a monkey. You wanna play with 'im?" That did it. Georgie sat up, rubbed his knuckles into his eyes and was awake. There was no danger that he'd go back to sleep again. She led him into the bathroom. The shadow wasn't in the corner any longer. It was in the clothes dryer. And it was making noises. Funny noises. Georgie's eyes brightened up. "G'rilla," he said. "Silly, it ain't big enough for a gorilla. What's it doin' up there?" "Eatin' too'paste," said Georgie. "An' talkin'. He got his face all messed up." "Oh, dear," said Rhoda. She could see now, as the daylight filtering through the window grew stronger, that there were green streaks around the bowl. "He messed up the sink, too." She faced the shadow. "You cut that out, do you hear? You stop messin' this place up." "He eats wif bofe moufs," said Georgie. "An' talks wif bofe." "Both mouths? You mean he's got two of them? Oh, no!" "He is so," insisted Georgie stubbornly. "First he puts it in one mouf an' talks wif udder mouf. Then he puts it in udder mouf an' talks wif first." "But a monkey has only one mouth." "This a g'rilla. Got two moufs." "And what else has he got, Georgie?" "Lots an' lotsa feet. Zillionsa feet." "You don't even know what a zillion is. You can't count over five." "I can so. He's holdin' dryer wif free feet an' eatin' too'paste wif free more. An' he gotta lotta feet up in air. He got zillionsa feet." THE shadow seemed to grow tired of the dryer and suddenly began to flash around the bathroom again. A squeezed-out tube of toothpaste fell to the floor. Rhoda, guided by the sound, picked it up. She noticed as she did so that there were puddles of water on the floor again. She put the tube back on the sink and watched the shadow. It was still making funny noises. It made a sudden leap from the shower curtain right into the middle of the room and then ... Rhoda blinked. There were no more funny noises. And the shadow was gone. It had leaped right into the air and disappeared. "I wan"im back!" said Georgie loudly. "But where did he go?" "He wen' away. I wan' 'im back, I wan' 'im back!" And then, quite suddenly, as was Georgie's way, he began to bawl and scream. "I wan' my g'rilla!" The bathroom door opened. Daddie stood there, looking mad. "What's the reason for making an unholy racket at this hour in the morning?" "Oh, Daddie, Georgie's bein' silly. He says he wants his gorilla back, but it ain't a gorilla. It's only a monkey. And it ain't his. I don't know who it belongs to." "I wan' 'im back!" screamed Georgie. "Stop that, Georgie," said Rhoda, "before Daddie gets really angry." "You're a little too late for that, my fine-frenzied son. But you'd better stop that screaming anyway." He looked around, the bathroom. "What have you been doing in this place—making rain? The floor looks as if a flood had hit it." "It wasn't us, Daddie. It was the monkey. He was splashin' water and eatin' toothpaste. At least Georgie says he was." "Wif bofe moufs," added Georgie. "An' talkin' wif bofe." Daddie looked angrier and angrier. "I don't know what kind of game you children have been playing. But I don't want you messing up the bathroom—or making a racket this early in the morning." "I told the monkey not to mess the place up, Daddie, only I don't think he understood me. He talked funny." "Never mind this imaginary monkey. Just you two behave. Now I'm going back to bed to catch a few more winks—" The alarm rang. Loud and clear. "My mistake. All right, I'll have to stay up now. But in the future—no monkey business before the alarm clock goes off." During the day, Georgie was an awful nuisance. Rhoda offered him her teddy bear and her big panda and her middle-sized panda and her rabbit and her giraffe—but Georgie rejected them all. They weren't alive and he wanted an animal that was—his g'rilla. And nothing that Rhoda could say succeeded in convincing him that the g'rilla wasn't really his. A remarkably stubborn child, Georgie, as Mommie had once said in Rhoda's hearing. IN the afternoon, Mommie took Rhoda to the doctor again and he gave her the usual examination shining lights in her eyes, and staring deep into them. When he was through, Mommie said something to him in a half whisper that Rhoda couldn't hear. He shook his head. "No, it isn't affected. Not that way. Only the nerves leading from the retina." "But she imagines the most peculiar things, Doctor. She said something about seeing a monkey in the bathroom. She even convinced her little brother, Georgie." "Georgie thinks it's a gorilla," Rhoda explained. "And he says it has two mouths and a zillion feet. Georgie is a baby. He don't know what he sees." "You know, don't you, Rhoda?" said the doctor. "I know when I see it good. But I couldn't see this as good as Georgie can. It was kinda shadowy." "Really?" "And it jumped in the air an' banished." "Vanished, dear." "Vanished, Mommie. Only it didn't have any zillion feet. Georgie is a liar." "No, I wouldn't say that. He just has a lively imagination—as most young children do," said the doctor. "It's nothing to worry about." Nothing to worry about, thought Rhoda. He wouldn't have said so if he had to put up with Georgie the rest of that day. Georgie didn't forget his g'rilla for a moment and finally Rhoda had to shut him in a closet behind a row of dresses. There he screamed even louder than ever, but in a muffled way, until Mommie found out what was going on and released him. At night, before he fell asleep, he again demanded the g'rilla. And the next morning, when Rhoda went to the bathroom and heard the water running, as she had expected, she was annoyed to find that Georgie had awakened, too, and was tagging along. But he didn't make any racket this time. Because the shadow was there, racing around the bathroom as before and making its funny noises, and Georgie was too pleased to scream. At first, anyway. The shadow came to rest on the side of the wall. "I wanna pet 'im," said Georgie. "I wanna make nice. Tell 'im to come 'ere." "He won't do what I tell him. But I got a idea, Georgie. You saw him eatin' that toothpaste?" "Wif bofe moufs." "He must like it an awful lot. I know where Mommie put some extra toothpaste she bought. Maybe if I give it to him, he'll come down to us." SHE had to climb up on a chair to get the toothpaste from the shelf, where Mommie had put it, but she found it at last and brought it into the bathroom—two tubes of it. "Here, Georgie, you give it to him." Georgie held out his hand with the toothpaste. The shadow scampered over the ceiling, then swooped down, grabbed the tube, and was up on the clothes dryer the next moment, twisting the cap off. The cap fell to the floor. Five seconds later, the tube itself landed with a slight crash. "He don't want it," said Rhoda in amazement. She picked up the tube. "Oh, it ain't the green kind. Here, Georgie, give him the other tube. Maybe he'll like that." The other tube was snatched up, the cap removed. "He's eatin' it," said Georgie. "He likes this kin'." "He better not eat it all. We ain't got too much toothpaste left." "He didn't lemme pet 'im. Tell 'im to lemme, Rhoda." "He can't understand us, silly. He's only an animal. He talks animal talk." "G'rilla," said Georgie. "Maybe if I give him another animal . . ." Rhoda slipped quietly back to her room and selected a small rabbit. A pretty fuzzy rabbit that was one of Georgie's favorites. She hurried back into the bathroom, banging her arm against the wall in her eagerness. The shadow was still up near the ceiling, but when she held out the fuzzy rabbit, it descended a trifle as if to examine her offer. "I wanna give it!" cried Georgie. She let him take the rabbit and hold it out in his chubby little hand. The shadow descended a few inches more. "He's afraid," said Georgie. "Here, g'rilla. Here, g'rilla . . ." The shadow swooped and snatched. The rabbit seemed to leap up into the air. "He didn't lemme pet 'im," said Georgie, his face puckering. "I wanna—" Rhoda put her hand over his mouth just in time. "Don't you remember what Daddie said? You mustn't wake him." Georgie was trying to get a squawk out, but nothing got past Rhoda's palm except a muffled, "Mmmmmm." So he tried to bite her hand. Rhoda promptly kicked him. At that moment the alarm clock went off and Rhoda took her hand away. "Now you kin scream, Georgie," she told him. "Scream all you wanna." Georgie at once availed himself of the privilege and loosed a poignant ear-shattering yell that drowned out the still-ringing alarm clock. The shadow leaped past Rhoda as if startled and disappeared from view. And the rabbit disappeared with it. Through half-closed eyes, in the midst of his tantrum, the screaming boy realized that he was now also bereft of his rabbit. Rage pumped additional power into the already piercing shriek. THE door was torn open and Daddie said, "What the hell!" Rhoda was shocked. "Oh, Daddie, what you said!" "Never mind what I said. What's going on here?" "Da g'rilla stole my fuzzy wabbit!" yelled Georgie. "He stole my wabbit an' 'e didn't lemme pet 'im!" "It wasn't a gorilla, silly. It was a monkey." "What kind of nonsense is this? Are you kids still pretending there's a monkey around here?" Mommie came hurrying up. Georgie yelled, "Mommie, da g'rilla stole my wabbit!" "I thought they were through pretending about a gorilla or a monkey or whatever it is. What's behind all this, anyway?" "I suppose, dear, they have to have some excuse for messing up the bathroom," Mommie said. "It wasn't us, it was the monkey," said Rhoda. "I know, darling." "He took my wabbit." "Now, look here . . ." "Oh, never mind, George. What difference does it make? How much longer do you suppose ... How much—longer?" Rhoda noticed to her surprise that Mommie seemed on the point of tears again. This was absolutely absurd. It was all right for Georgie to cry over a stolen rabbit, but a grownup like Mommie? And Daddie, too, seemed to be upset. His voice got husky. "I suppose we ought to be thankful that she's interested—and imaginative—and happy—" "I want my wabbit back!" insisted Georgie. "Your rabbit must be lost somewhere among all those animals people sent Rhoda. I'll look for it after breakfast, Georgie." "It ain't los'. Da g'rilla took it." Georgie, as the entire family had noted by this time, was a remarkably stubborn child. He kept accusing the g'rilla all through the day. Daddie went to work early and missed some of his complaining, but Mommie and Rhoda had to stay at home and listen and after a time they got tired of it and Mommie told Georgie to keep quiet. But he wouldn't. Finally Rhoda said, "You'll get your rabbit back tomorrow morning, Georgie. The monkey will bring it." "That's right, dear," agreed Mommie. "And when he comes, I'll .ask him for it myself. Maybe he'll even come tonight, when you and Georgie are asleep, and pay you another visit." "Oh, no, Mommie, he never comes at night. Just in the morning. And I think he can't go very far outa the bathroom or he disappears like he was magic." "We'll see," said Mommie, ending the conversation. THAT evening after supper, Rhoda heard her talking about the monkey to Daddie. "She's created a set of rules for her imaginary monkey. About when it can appear and where." "Well, when you create a world of your own, I suppose you have to create rules for it," said Daddie thoughtfully. "Primitive peoples did the same thing, and in many ways children are like their primitive ancestors. They find certain magic moments when unusual things can happen—high noon, midnight, sunset, dawn. With Rhoda, it's dawn. They have special magic places where their wonders occur. With Rhoda, it's the bathroom. They also prepare gifts and sacrifices to win the favor of their visitors from other worlds." "A tube of toothpaste," laughed Mommie. "Green toothpaste only. Chlorophyll, somehow symbolizing the plant world." "Oh, George, the child has no idea of that!" "Maybe she has an idea without without knowing she has it. I'll bet she has heard all those ads about the magic of chlorophyll and believes them. And she has unconsciously used them in constructing this imaginary world of hers." "Well, she has certainly sold Georgie on it. He's a believer, too." "It isn't hard to convince somebody who is even more primitive than you are," he said. "Now take the very appearance of that 'monkey'—" "Ugh! You take it? It sounds horrible." "It's supposed to have a lot of legs and two mouths. I suppose we'll never get a chance to check the description—" they both laughed—"but the very idea is absurd. Two mouths—and it eats with one while it talks with the other. Who ever heard of such a thing? It would take a child to think of it. And Georgie is just the child for the job. After all, he isn't too sure where his own mouth is. He has been known to try to put a spoonful of food in his ear or his eye." Rhoda interrupted, "I saw two mouths, too. When he got real close to us." Daddie smiled. "Honest, Rhoda? But why does the monkey need both of them?" Rhoda paused. "I know," she said suddenly. "Because sometime he feels like laughin' and cryin at the same time and it's hard to do with one mouth." "That's a good reason," agreed Daddie, "but I won't believe it until he tells me himself. Meanwhile, Rhoda, suppose we quiet Georgie by letting him play wit one of your own fuzzy animals. "It isn't fair to Rhoda!" Mommie protested. "I don't mind, Mommie." "Thank you, dear. You're a very generous child." "A swell kid," said Daddie, "A wonderful kid. When I think . . ." He stopped. Rhoda waited for him to say something more, but he didn't. He just put his arms around her and kissed her. RHODA wondered what he had been going to say. She wished she were a grownup so she'd be able to read his mind, the way Mommie sometimes did, and was evidently doing now. Only reading people's minds didn't seem to make you happy. You seemed to read them best when they had sad thoughts and then you began to feel all sad and weepy yourself, the way Mommie was feeling. Rhoda knew of nothing to be sad about. She couldn't see as well as she once did and sometimes she felt weak or had headaches, but so did everybody. From time to time she heard Mommie's neighbors complain of all sorts of terrible aches and pains and she pitied them. But she had no reason to pity herself. None at all. Everybody was nice to her, people she didn't know sent her presents and Mommie and Daddie gave her parties long before everybody else had them. You might have thought they were trying to cram as much happiness as possible into her existence. And she had the monkey in the bathroom, which nobody else seemed to have. True, she couldn't go to the movies. But despite that she led, she thought, a very interesting life. That night, after Georgie was asleep and before she herself went to bed, it became even more interesting. She had neglected Lillian Marilyn during the day, and as she went to the carriage to kiss the doll good night, she saw ... She tiptoed out to tell Mommie and Daddie about it. Daddie laughed. "Imagination working overtime, Rhoda? Well, I'll take a look at your doll carriage." He followed Rhoda into the bedroom, with Mommie close behind him. "Ah, there's the carriage. Now to see if the monkey really has two mouths." He pulled back the top of the carriage and looked down. Then he choked. Rhoda heard him strangling and she caught a faint, "My God!" He stepped back and stared at Mommie, who was also staring into the carriage as if she had turned to stone. "What's the matter, Daddie?" asked Rhoda anxiously. "Don't he have two mouths?" "Get back, Rhoda! Don't come close to it!" "Why, Daddie? Does he got a disease?" Daddie grabbed her and held her too tight. "You take Georgie," he directed Mommie. "We'll get out of here and lock the door. We can't take any chances." Sounds came from the doll carriage—sounds like those from a nursery in turmoil. "Do you hear, Daddie?" cried Rhoda. "It's just like I told you. He's laughin' and cryin' at the same time! Guess he's excited," she added thoughtfully. "Guess the way big people look scared him." THE shadow catapulted itself out of the carriage and began to scamper around the room. It leaped past Daddie, hopped on to Georgie's stomach—Mommie gave a cry of alarm at that—then began to race around the walls below the ceiling. Georgie sat up. "Da g'rilla!" he cried. "I want my wabbit!" "Hush, Georgie! Don't scare 'im like Daddie and Mommie did!" The shadow reached the door and was through it in a flash. For a fraction of a second, they heard its excited shrieking and then—silence. Daddie peered cautiously into the bathroom. "Not here," he said hoarsely. "It's gone." "But suppose it comes back!" exclaimed Mommie. "He won't come back," said Rhoda sadly. "You scared him. Poor monkey!" Daddie and Mommie looked at each other. Mommie said tremulously and with a trace of acid, "I guess Rhoda does have a very powerful imagination." "Now don't go overboard about what we saw," said Daddie. "We were excited at the idea of a strange animal in the children's bedroom. But actually—" "It did have two mouths," said Mommie stubbornly. "I saw them. It was laughing out of one and crying out of the other. And it had a great many legs. And parts of it were dark and parts were shining like little jewels. Don't tell me I imagined all that! Don't tell me you didn't see it, too!" Daddie started to say something and stopped. And at that moment Georgie uttered a great cry of triumph. "My wabbit! Da g'rilla bwought back my wabbit!" "He didn't take it away in the first place, you little silly," said Rhoda. "In the morning, when we weren't lookin', he must've run in here. And then he got tired and went to sleep in the doll carriage with Lillian Marilyn. I bet he was here all day." She said reproachfully, "You shouldn'ta scared him, Daddie." "I'm sorry, Rhoda." Daddie managed a smile. "But I'm just as glad to be finished with him." Rhoda had a feeling that they weren't finished with him at all. In the morning, when she awoke early as usual, the first thing she did was go to the doll carriage to see if possibly he had returned. But there was no sign of him. Lillian Marilyn lay alone, her eyes closed, her pink cheeks shining in the morning light. A little twisted, as if she had had a restless night, but otherwise quite normal. Rhoda tried to straighten her out, but Lillian Marilyn wouldn't straighten. Putting her hand under the doll, Rhoda learned why. Something yellow lay there in the carriage. The monkey must have left it behind him, forgotten in his excitement. It was yellow and shiny and strangely warm, and it felt as if in some curious way it were alive. As if it were really part of the monkey himself. As she held it, it seemed to move under her hands—and then burst into dazzling brilliance. When Rhoda could see again, it was as if through a veil—a yellow veil that spread between her and the room and made everything hazier than ever. A veil through which she could hardly be sure what she saw. That wasn't a man in front of her. Even through the veil, she could see that he didn't quite look like a man. He was too big and he was colored a greenish-yellow and, like the monkey, he had two mouths. And he didn't seem to have any eyes at all. But he certainly seemed to see what he was doing. He was looking at her—no, not at her, through her—and for a minute she was afraid of him. He said something with one of his mouths, and Rhoda shook her head. "I'm sorry, Mr. Monkey's Daddie, I can't understand you. But we didn't want to scare your little boy and make him forget part of himself. Honest." One of his mouths laughed and he picked her up. And somehow at the touch of his hands, without knowing why, she wasn't afraid any more. He was talking to her again. Not with his mouths at all this time, but with the way he felt. And she could understand him. She could understand him perfectly. He felt like hugging her, which he did, and he felt like crying at the same time. He was glad he had her now and sorry he couldn't have her longer. He felt the way her Mommie and Daddie did sometimes when they looked at her and saw how happy she was about the presents people gave her and the gentle way the doctor spoke to her. As if it were something to cry about when everybody was so nice to her. The man who wasn't a man said something very softly with the mouth that was supposed to cry. It was like the doctor saying, "This won't hurt now." And it didn't. There was a blinding flash of light and for a minute she couldn't see at all. And then the veil was gone and for the first time in ever so long, everything was clear. The man was handsome and shiny, like the colored plastic toys she got, only much larger, of course, and very strong. And he was all beautiful colors, like electric lights on a Christmas tree, and he had the same kind of skin one of her dolls had, soft and warm and smooth—much better than human skin. And there was a place in back where she knew he could hook on wings whenever he wanted to. Of course he wasn't a man, any more than the little one was a monkey—he looked like one of the things on a picture of an Indian totem pole that she had found in a gift book. And now she could see where his eyes were. They were inside his head and they were very wise and kind. HE put her down and spoke again—she couldn't see with which mouth—and it was only one word, but she knew what it meant. Some people might think it was just "Good-by," but it really meant much more than that. It meant "Good luck" and "God be with you" and "I love you very much" and "One day you will come and live with us" and a lot more. Instead of blinking out of existence like the little one in the bathroom, he faded slowly, almost regretfully, looking back at her with the kind, wise eyes inside his head. She knew he would have eaten green toothpaste or anything else she gave him, but only because it would be a gift and he would want to make her happy. He seemed to like the kiss she threw him better than toothpaste or a toy rabbit. And then he was gone. For a while, she stood there, just looking around. She looked out the window and at Lillian Marilyn and at Georgie sleeping and at all her fuzzy animals. She just couldn't get tired of looking at things. Then the alarm clock went off and she hurried to tell about her big friend. Her Mommie and Daddie looked at each other. "There was a man here?" Daddie asked, worried. "A very nice man," said Rhoda, "except he wasn't really a man. He was all colors and he had his eyes inside his head." Without boasting, she added, "He loved me." "He couldn't help loving you, dear," Mommie replied. "He was nice. He made me see. Mommie, can I go to the movies this afternoon? I didn't go for such a long time." "Rhoda, what's got into you? You've been saying the strangest things!" "Like what, Mommie?" "That he made you see!" "But he did. My vidgeon is perfect. I can see where the hem of your robe is unrabbling and where Daddie cut himself and I can see what a mess this room is. I'll help you clean it up, Mommie, if you let me go to the movies today." There was a silence. Georgie came in and even he understood that something had happened that was more important than his newfound rabbit and, eyes round and missing nothing, he kept quiet. And then Mommie said, "Does your head hurt, Rhoda dear?" "Oh, no! I feel fine. Mommie can I go to the movies if the do tor says it's all right?" "We'll see what he says, dear. Are you sure you can see s clearly?" " 'Course, Mommie. I can se out the window much better than I could yesterday. Look, there's little bird in that tree and he's pulling a piece of paper out of his nest." "Where?" asked Mommie. "I don't see that myself." "I think," Daddie said hoarsely, "we'd better get her to the doctor right away." BUT the doctor was silly. Even though he admitted there was nothing wrong with her eyes, he still wouldn't let Rhoda go to the movies. He didn't understand it and he wanted other doctors to look at her and see if he'd somehow made a mistake and. to make sure the recovery was permanent. Mommie was still sillier. She began to cry without being a bit sad. Even Daddie had tears in his eyes, although Daddies weren't supposed to cry. But knowing what the man who wasn't a man had said to her without talking, Rhoda understood how Daddie felt. As for Rhoda, she herself was sad for the first time. She could see better than anybody else—right through the wall and into the next room and a bird on the opposite side of a tree, as she had done that morning, and around corners and in the deepest dark. But that was something she had and it could be taken for granted. She knew the monkey and his Daddie would never come back again. Under his real name,— "William Morrison'' is a general man of letters, writing everything from children's stories to adult quality fiction — which leaves us wondering how he finds time to turn out the large amount of distinguished science fiction which appears with the Morrison by-line. He's an old-timer in the field, dating back to 1941; but readers are apt to think of him as one of the newer writers because his work in the past four years has been so much more individual and off trail than his earlier conventional science fiction. The Morrison name is now a trademark for unusually detailed and logical exploration of an odd idea — as in this, the first of a number of Morrison novelets which F & SF is happy to bring you. Here's an adventure story of peril on a strange planet — and also a wry and very funny commentary on family life, as it is today or will be in the Galactic Future, among ourselves or among giants 1167 feet tall. Playground by WILLIAM MORRISON GEORGE WAS READING a book of old poetry, the kind that rhymed, when Jerry ran in and said, "Dad." He frowned. "Haven't I told you before that I don't want to be interrupted when I'm reading?" "I know, Dad, but I thought — well, this is kind of important. The gauge registers one-tenth gee." "A planet or a sun?" "A planet, but it looks kind of big. And our engines are missing, and it's pulling us down toward it, and Mom is kind of worried. She said —" "Never mind what she said. I'll take a look." He threw down the book of poetry, without even marking the page, and started to follow Jerry out of the room. By the time they reached the corridor, he was ahead of Jerry. Why the devil didn't the kid tell him in the first place that Sabina was worried? He'd have known then it was no trifle, he wouldn't have wasted time being annoyed and asking silly questions. The rest of the family was in the pilot's cabin, Sabina at the controls, Lester peering over her shoulder, Carl trying to push Lester out of the way. Sabina looked up as he came hurrying in. "I don't think there's much danger, George," she said. "But I thought you ought to know." "Of course I ought to know. Not that I'm worried about the way you handle the ship. Still —" He stared at the instrument panel. "Point one three gee," said Sabina. "It's pulling us down." "What's wrong with the engines?" "There's just no power. I think that either the fuel line is clogged or something has diluted the uranium." "Nothing wrong according to the instruments. But they may be out of order." Sabina looked flushed and unusually pretty, as she did sometimes when she spent too much time over the electronic stove. "I think we'll have to land, George. The auxiliary engine is all right — I tested it. It'll take us down for a landing." "But what sort of planet is this?" "Diameter 12,000 miles, density one point five seven," began Lester officiously. "Atmosheeric pressure —" "All right, all right. I can read the instruments." Lester looked hurt, and Sabina said reproachfully, "Oh, George, he's only trying to be helpful." We've been cooped up too long together, he thought. No family should be forced to spend more than a month in any ship. And here we've been getting on each other's nerves for half a year. But Sabina is right, I'm too brusque with the kid. He's only eight, and I mustn't hurt his feelings. He said, "I'm sorry, Lester. Go on. What else does it say?" "Atmosheeric pressure —" "Atmospheric pressure, dear," corrected Sabina. "Seventeen hundred twenty-two em em Hg at ground level —" "Wow," said Jerry, who was eleven and knew that sea-level pressure on Earth was only 760 mm. "That's a lot." "Atmosheeric — atmospheric composition: en two, 29 point seven, oh two, 31 point four, aitch ee, fourteen point one —" "Too rich, but breathable," said George. "Thank God, we'll be able to adjust without too much trouble, and won't have to wear our space suits." "Now don't make any promises you can't keep," warned Sabina. "You know we'll have to check on microorganisms first." "I'm sorry I said anything," said George stiffly. "But I thought they knew that. We always check on microorganisms." Carl, a bright-eyed youngster of three, had been standing there listening in wide-eyed silence. Now he said, "Mommy." "Yes, Carl." "I wanna go home." "Of course we'll go home, Carl." "I don't wanna go to any planick." "We gotta go to the planet first," explained Jerry. "We can't help ourselves. Pop gotta fix the engines —" "I wanna go home. I don't wanna go to any planick. I wanna go home, I don't wanna go to any planick, I wanna go home, I don't wanna —" George closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Here we go again, he thought. Next time I say anything about taking these kids on a vacation in space I'll know it's time to have my head examined. Sabina looked as harried as he felt. She said, "You take over the ship, George. I've got a nice heat-pop for Carl. Would you like a nice heat-pop, Carl? A delicious yummy heat-pop that keeps your tongue nice and warm and tastes like ice cream or anything else you want it to taste like?" "I wanna go home," said Carl. Sabina took him firmly by the hand and half led, half dragged him away. George sat down at the controls. It was a fair-sized planet with low average density. That meant that the surface gravity would be low. The kids will like that, he thought. It won't be too big a change from the low artificial gravity of the space ship. The high atmospheric pressure and oxygen content may make them a little excitable at first, but in the long run, the effects will do them good. They'll have a chance to run around and get some of the nervousness out of their systems. And there'll be more space, provided there aren't too many dangerous animals. Less chance of the kids getting in my hair. When I think of the month we've still got to go before we get back to Earth, my heart sinks. I could brain the guy who suggested we take that vacation. The planet was growing now, a vast bluish-gray ball that was slowly filling the entire viewing screen. The altimeter began to function at 500,000 feet, as he switched on the auxiliary engine and began to spiral down. No features discernible in the landscape, he thought, not through those clouds. At 100,000 feet the radar began to give him useful details of the landscape. He passed over a vast ocean and began to fly over solid ground. After a minute of this, however, something seemed to go wrong with the altimeter. The needle of light began to waver. Eighty thousand feet — 70,000 — 80,000 – 69,000 — 78,000 — 69,000 — 76,000 Mountains, he thought, peculiar mountains that stick up as isolated individuals above the surface. They'll make landing difficult. I'll have to be careful how I lose altitude. I'd better take it slow and easy until we get past the thickest cloud layers and actually see what's going on. Jerry and Lester were standing alongside him, knowing from experience that they'd better not interrupt. He could hear Sabina's footsteps as she came back. "Carl's asleep," she said. "That was the trouble with him, he was hungry and sleepy. He's all right when he's on a planet, and it gets light and dark outside, but when he's out in space he has no conception of day and night, and he just can't adjust. I think —" Without turning around to look at her, George held up his hand. "Please, Sabina, not now. There's something strange going on down there." Sabina subsided. He peered at the view screen, but the visible light that came from below was still gray and diffuse. And the radar wasn't too clear, while the altimeter still wavered. Fifty-nine thousand — 48,000 — 58,000 – 48,000 Mountains all over the place. Mountains that stuck sharp and high into the air as individuals, with deep valleys between them and their neighbors. And not a sign of flat land suitable for landing. Or was there? Forty-six thousand, 45,000, 45,000 — it was holding rather steady now. This might be the place. The needle suddenly shot down again to 31,000, and he turned the ship back. He had found one plain, he mightn't find another. He'd land where he could. They were breaking through the clouds now, and a sudden gasp came from the kids. "Look, Dad!" exclaimed Jerry. "Tree-mountains!" The boy was right, he thought. That's what they were, huge trees as tall as mountains. That's why they rose into the sky as individuals, and there were no mountain ranges. They stretched away into the distance as far as he could see. A good thing, he told himself, we didn't try to land among them, or sure as shootin' we'd have had a bad smash. Lucky too that he had turned back to find that one plain. It was a large clearing, with a dozen times as much space as he needed to make a landing. He could set the ship down right in the middle. Sabina said wonderingly, "Is that grass down there?" "It looks pretty tall, but I guess it is. Things seem to be done here on a big scale, Sabina." "Gosh, Pop," said Jerry, "do you think the animals here are big too?" "They probably are. However, I don't think we have to worry about that. Our atomic rifles should be able to scare them away." "Will you let me shoot a rifle, Pop?" asked Lester eagerly. "No," he said curtly. "And don't ask me again." "Can I shoot it, Pop? I'm eleven, almost twelve —" "Nobody is going to touch a rifle except your mother and me. Now, if you kids know what is good for you, you're going to drop the subject. I don't want anybody to distract my attention while I'm landing." He made the landing without trouble, not far from the center of the clearing. Then he began to take samples of the air and soil. The kids waited impatiently, anxious to get out into the fresh air. Gravity was low, about a half gee. They'd have a wonderful time running and bouncing around —provided there was no danger. But they'd have to wait, he thought. It took three hours to complete the tests, and although the ship carried a wide range of antibiotics, it was still silly to take chances. They'd just have to hold their horses until he'd made sure there were no viruses or other strange forms of life that their medicines couldn't handle. Sabina filled part of the time by giving them a meal. Then they watched a home stereo film. After that they came over to him, not saying a word, but nagging him by their mere presence. He was annoyed enough even without their help, and when Carl awoke, irritable as usual, and began to bawl, he was ready to send them out there to face whatever the planet had to offer. But he didn't. He waited the full three hours, and at the end of that time he said, "All right, you can go out — with Mother. Sabina, better take a rifle. And give them their pocket pistols. I'll get set to make repairs." "But you can't touch the engine until it cools off, dear." "I know, but I want to get things ready. Now, remember, Jerry and Lester, don't put your pistols down, not for a minute. Keep them aimed at the ground. Do not point them at each other. And stay close to your mother." "I wanna pistol," wailed Carl. "You can sweat bullets, my fine-feathered friend, but you still won't get a pistol. Not for another two years. Take him away, Sabina, before his buzzing gets on my nerves and I swat him as I would a Martian mosquito." Sabina hastily took Carl away, and George inhaled deeply. Ah, the blessed quiet, he thought. Too bad it can't last. He got out his repair kit. Then he undid the anti-radiation chest and gave himself a shot. He'd better give them to Sabina and the kids too, he thought. Just in case they come monkeying around the engine while I'm fixing it and get a burst of rays accidental-like. Even Carl — especially Carl. He can scream all he wants to, but the way that kid pokes his nose into everything I'd better take no chances. And maybe the jab of the needle will convince him I mean business when I say I don't want to be bothered, and make him stay away from me for a while. They had left the door of the ship open, and the heavy native air of the planet had rushed in. It was a little hard to breathe at first, but he knew he'd get used to it and suffer no after-effects. He had got used to worse air. But what the devil was it so quiet about outside? What were Sabina and the kids doing? It's nice to be left alone, it's wonderful to have Sabina take care of them all by her sweet self — and she is sweet, as I have to admit — but still this is a strange planet, and there may be danger out there. She's only a weak woman after all, and those kids — well, you know how kids are, always thrusting their snotty little noses into places where they have no business. Quiet as profound as this is positively ominous. He took another rifle from the rack and stepped out. The scene was peaceful enough, if strange. The grass, oddly jointed red-green stalks a half foot thick, rose 50 feet into the air, way above the ship, which had burned a path through it in making a landing. A slight wind swayed the tops of the stalks and made a thin sighing noise as it wandered among them. The grass was wet, as from recent rain. Probably the reason the fire hadn't spread. Through the path burned in the grass he could see that a dozen miles away the mountainous trees rose into the air, grotesque figures by virtue of their shape as well as their size. They were more like enormous cacti, of the Martian type, than the trees he had known. If they moved in the wind at all, it was to such a slight extent that he couldn't detect it. They seemed to be frozen into place. It wasn't the plants, however, but the animals that worried him. Off to one side he heard a distant noise, as if something were crashing through the stalks of grass. Then quiet. And then the noise came from in front of him. It grew louder, came nearer A small reddish animal about two feet long leaped from the forest of grass. It moved so quickly that he had only a vague idea of the shape of the head and he couldn't be sure of the number of feet. Chasing after it came a mighty hunter — Carl, who pointed his finger and said, "Bang, bang!" And after Carl came Lester, who pointed a pistol and made a louder and more ominous bang. A stalk of grass, ripped in two, bent and broke and then came crashing down, barely missing the eager Carl. "Lester!" shouted George. "Stop shooting! Stop it, do you hear me?" After Lester came Jerry, and behind him Sabina. "What's going on here?" demanded George. All three children began to explain at once, and George shut them up. "They were chasing that beast," said Sabina. "Did it attack them?" "Well, no. Jerry was in front, and Lester behind him, with Carl and me bringing up the rear. I was just a little ahead of Carl, who was sucking on another heat-pop. Suddenly I heard him cry and yell, 'Bad dog, bad dog!' " "Bad dog," agreed Carl. "He took my pop." "Yes, that brazen animal stole Carl's pop right out of his hand. When we came after it, it ran back in this direction." "And it made no attempt to harm any of the children?" "No attempt at all." "Let's hope the other animals aren't any more vicious. I think, Sabina, that from now on the kids had better stick closer to the ship. At least until we know our fauna better." "But they do so like to run around," said Sabina wistfully. "It's too dangerous to run where we can't see. The grass cuts off our view in every direction except where the ship's jets burned it down. We don't know what danger's going to swoop down on us next." "I ain't afraid of no danger," said Lester. "You know what I'll do, Pop, if some animal jumps at me? I'll give 'im the old one-two. And then I'll point my pistol — a-a-a-a-a —" "Don't you point that at me! Here, give it to me! We're in more danger from that than from the animals. Let's get back into the ship." They had left the ship's door open, and sudden fear struck George. It would be an unpleasant surprise to find that some beast had sneaked in and was lying in wait for them. He began to hurry. A great shadow blotted out the light above them. Then, as the shadow swooped down, there was a dull thud and the bow of the ship leaped into the air. The entire vessel trembled for a moment, then fell again and turned slightly on its side. George and Sabina looked at each other. Jerry said, "What was that, Pop?" "I don't know. Wait a minute, everybody. Don't move —" There was a distant roar, as of a herd of cattle crashing through the great stalks of grass. Another shadow blotted out the light. George looked up and saw what seemed to a mountain towering over them. "Down!" he shouted. "Everybody down!" They threw themselves down, and even as they did so, George doubted the wisdom of the move. If that thing were the giant he thought it, a single footstep could obliterate the entire family. The shadow passed over them. They could hear the tearing and splintering of the grass, and then the noise diminished, and it was clear daylight once more. He said, "We'd better get out of here." A shadow again. This time it passed rapidly, and he could see its edges recede over the grass. It was circular in shape, as if the object which cast it were spherical. The object struck the ground, not the ship this time, and the shock sent an unpleasant tremor through all of them. Then the object rose into the air again. "Back to the ship!" ordered George. "Everybody back — quick!" They ran into the ship and he shut the door. Outside there was another minor earthquake. And then silence. He had never seen the kids so scared. They were speechless with fright. I can't blame them, he thought. I feel the same way. It was Carl who recovered first. He said, "Bad dog took my pop. I wanna go home." "Quiet, Carl," said Lester importantly. "You be quiet," said Jerry. We're getting back to normal, thought George. The dryness in his throat passed. He said, "It seems gone now. Hope it doesn't come back in a hurry." "What do you think it was, George?" asked Sabina. "Well, that thing that hit the ship first, and then the ground, seemed to bounce. And it had a curved edge. I'd say it was a ball of some kind." "A ball, Pop?" exclaimed Jerry. "You heard me. And that giant crashing through the grass must have been a kid playing with it." "Some kid!" said Lester. "Gosh, Pop, he was as hooge as a house." "Huge, dear," corrected Sabina. "He was bigger'n a house. At least 1000 feet high," said Jerry. "Maybe not that much. I'll admit I was in too much of a hurry to get a good look at him — if it is a him. It may have been a girl, or it may have been neither." "Neither?" said Lester incredulously. "That's silly, Pop. A kid's gotta be something. If it ain't a boy it's a girl, and if it ain't a girl it's a boy. I remember that stereo Mom got us — it's all about sects —" "Sex, dear." "Let's not discuss that now," said George, feeling harried. "When I say I think this was a kid, I'm using the term loosely. I should say, perhaps, that it was the young of some intelligent species. I don't know how young, and I can't make any guess." "But a thousand feet high, Pop!" said Jerry. "What'll he be when he grows up?" "It wasn't a thousand feet — I'd say it was closer to 800, although as I've already told you, I didn't get enough time to make an accurate estimate. But even if the adult is no more than a thousand feet — well, I'm about average for a human being, six foot one, and those creatures are more than 106 times as big." "To them," said Sabina, "we're like insects. Less than half an inch long." "I'll bet they don't know we're alive," said Jerry. "But the ship's big enough for them to see," said George. "And if they catch sight of that —" Carl added the proper comment by wailing, "I wanna go home." "Me too," said Lester. "This place is fulla pearls." "Perils, Lester," said Sabina automatically. "We'll go home, all of us. But I've still a little work on those engines first. And they're not quite cool yet. So, in the meantime —" There must have been an ominous note in his voice, for Jerry said uneasily, "Guess I'll look at a stereo, Pop." "No you don't. You stay here. Everybody stay here." "What for?" "Anti-radiation injection. I'll just get the needles ready —" "Aw, Pop," said Jerry. "I got one just last week." "You'll take another one. I just gave one to myself." "But it makes me break out all over —" began Lester. "It does nothing of the kind. Now, stop all this nonsense. You're getting to be big kids, both of you, and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves making a fuss about a little injection. Even Carl wouldn't do a thing like that." Carl promptly made a liar of him by beginning to yell, "I don't wanna needle! I wanna go home, I wanna go home —" George had intended to save Carl for the last, letting the infant of the family profit by the good examples his older brothers set him. But Carl's bawling forced a change of plan. He seized the three-year-old and despite violent squirming jabbed the needle into the plump arm. Carl's voice rose in a shriek that might have been emitted by one of the damned, and Sabina hastily dragged him away. "You might have thought that hurt," muttered George in disgust. "All right, Lester, you're practically nine years old, you're next." "I'm only eight — I'm just an infant, Pop! Jerry's older!" "You're next, I said." The needle bit again, and after that it was Jerry's turn. Jerry, as befitted his extreme age, exclaimed only, "Ouch!" "What do you mean, 'ouch'? That didn't hurt at all." "It didn't hurt you, but it hurt me." "Don't be a sissy." George turned toward the engine. "Everything's cooled off now. I'm going to start making repairs. Anybody want to help?" As it turned out, Jerry wasn't anxious, but Lester was gracious enough to offer his services, and when Jerry heard that, he offered his too. And as usual, after five exhausting minutes, both boys decided that they were tired and went off, leaving him alone. George grunted something about the kids these days growing up to be useless and wanting everything done for them, and went on with his work. Outside, all was quiet. No crashing in the grass, no ominous shadows, no earthquakes. Sabina came in and asked, "Need any help, dear?" "Nothing, thank you. Just keep them out of my hair." "I think I'll take them out again. The danger seems to have passed." "We can't be sure. Just don't let them wander too far away from the ship." "Don't worry, dear." She bent down and kissed him casually on the cheek as he worked, and he grunted again, tolerantly. He was vaguely aware of her speaking in a low voice, telling the kids they mustn't bother him as they passed by. Even Carl, after the terrible experience of that injection, kept his mouth shut, and gave his father a wide berth on the way to the door. The engine's main feed line had been clogged. Some non-fissionable, non-fusible material had got in and diluted the fuel, and getting the impurity out without waste meant handling with tongs and using the slow process of remote control purification. And now that he looked at it, he could see that there was a weak spot due to corrosion, and that would have to be fixed before they went any further. A good ten hours of additional work, he thought, even if he was lucky. And closer to twenty, if he wasn't. He had become absorbed in the work, and it was with surprise that he looked up to see Sabina and the children come trooping back. "Have a good time?" he asked. "Oh, it was wonderful," said Sabina. "The children haven't enjoyed themselves so much for ages." "What did they do?" "Well, they found a little pool, probably created by that rain that fell before we got here. And they went in swimming." "Swimming?" "Oh, don't worry, George, I disinfected the water first. If you could have seen what a time they had splashing around you'd have been only too happy to join them." "I suppose you went in too." "Just for a little," she admitted. "Next time, George, we'll drag you along." "Maybe. See any animals?" "There was one beast like the one that stole Carl's pop. But it ran away when it saw us, and there were no big ones." "No giants throwing a ball around?" "Not a soul, large or small. I couldn't have asked for a better playground." "Fine. Now, if you don't mind, I'll get on with my work." "But it's getting dark, George. The sun is setting outside." "What of it? This job has to be done, and we don't go by this planet's time." "But you'll have to use artificial light. And if you don't want to start our air-purifiers, and leave the door open, some giant may notice it and come looking for the ship." "They'll think it's a firefly." "How do you know they have fireflies here? So far we haven't seen a single insect." "Then I'll keep the door closed." "You're so stubborn," she sighed. "It's no use talking to you." "You knew that when you married me." "I thought you'd change. Oh, well, I'm going to make supper." He went on working until it was time to eat. But after supper he suddenly felt tired. "Been up for a long time," he yawned. "Better get some sleep." "I feel tired too." So, for that matter, did the children — all except Carl. Carl had slept during the afternoon. Now he was wide awake and full of pep, and he insisted on letting everybody know that he wanted to go home. Sabina said, "I swear, I'm never going to take that child off Earth again. He's got the most irregular sleeping hours." "Put him in a weightless rocker," suggested George, "and shake the energy out of him. Maybe that'll do the trick." It did, and presently they all slept. George was awakened by an earthquake. He could feel the ship heave up in the air and then spin around its axis. When it came to rest again, everything was upside down. Carl was bawling, and the other kids were yelling, and Sabina was saying drowsily, with her eyes less than half open, "What happened? Did the alarm go off?" "No, but it's time to get up anyway," said George. The ground had stopped quaking, and he stared into the visor that gave them a picture of the ship's surroundings. "I'll be damned. It's morning!" "Already? I just closed my eyes!" "Either this planet has an abnormally short period of rotation, or it's summer here, and we're closer to one of the poles than I thought. Anyway, we've been asleep only five hours, and it's morning." "But what made the ground shake?" "I don't know — wait a minute, maybe I do." They crowded around him, staring into the visor together. "There's some animal, pretty far away. Let's see if I can get some figures on this." He adjusted the range finder. "Five thousand feet away — the thing must be 500 feet high!" "It's giantic," said Lester, "and it's jumping around. That's what made the earthquake." "And there's another figure — that must be the kid. Seven hundred eighty feet high — my guess of eight hundred was a good one. Maybe the smaller one is a pet." "But what kind of creatures are they?" demanded Sabina. "I can't make them out." "The one I called the kid is kind of human — I think. It has two legs." "They got a funny shape, Pop," said Lester. "They're broad, and they're heavier at the base than at the top. The body, in fact, seems to taper considerably. I suppose that if it were too heavy the legs wouldn't support it, even on a low-gravity planet like this." "I see four arms, Pop!" exclaimed Jerry. "I see a face, Pop!" cried Lester. "If you can call it a face," said George. "Well, let's be generous and say it is. There are eyes —" "Three of them, Pop!" announced Jerry. "I can count. There seem to be half a dozen noses and several mouths. And I'm not sure that I can tell one from the other." "But it's a child all the same," said Sabina. "Look, dear, he's holding something in his hand. It's a kind of stick. He's striking at the grass tops with it. And now he's throwing it!" "And that animal is chasing it!" said Jerry. "Just like a dog — only it's hopping like a frog!" "Gosh," said Lester. "I hope he don't throw it this way. That hopping thing would pulmerize us." "Pulverize, dear." "I wanna go home," said Carl. "That's an idea," agreed George. "Look, everybody, while Mom is getting breakfast ready, I'll have to be working on that engine. I found another corroded spot late yesterday, and it's going to take me longer than I thought at first. I want you kids to keep an eye on that little giant outside." "Okay, Pop," said Jerry. And he added wistfully, "He's lucky. Wish I had a dog to play with out there!" That was an old subject for discussion, and a sore one. But George had long ago decided that in a space ship a dog would be a nuisance, so now he simply ignored the remark and went about his work. He started to splatter a thin layer of metal over the corroded spots, trying at the same time not to hurry too much. He didn't dare do a bad job, or the patch would fall apart, and the engines would start missing again out in space. And next time there mightn't be a planet as convenient as this one to land on. He interrupted work for five minutes to eat, and then fell to again. Later that morning, the giant kid and his pet disappeared, and Sabina took the children outside. They went swimming again, and George, on hearing their glowing reports about the fun they had had, was strongly tempted to follow their example. But the work comes first, he told himself sternly. The work always comes first. That giant kid and his pet dog-frog don't seem to be vicious, but they're dangerous simply by virtue of their size. The sooner we get out of here the better. When he knocked off for lunch five hours later, he noted that all three children had a healthy, ruddy look about them. "The sun here gives you a beautiful tan," said Sabina. "This is really a wonderful vacation spot." "Provided you don't get stepped on." "Oh, I'm not afraid of that any more." "The trouble is," he told her, "that you're getting used to the danger. You're beginning to think it's nothing. Just because you've had luck so far." "It's hard to think of danger from that child, even though he is a giant," admitted Sabina. "The way he plays with his pet is so human." "His face isn't." Jerry was staring at the visor. He yelled suddenly, "Hey — look, everybody! There's another one!" They all ran over to see. In addition to the smaller giant, the one they had noticed before, there was a larger one, about one and a half times the first one's height. Eleven hundred and sixty-seven feet, by the range- and size-finder. The two giants were standing close together, and George felt a tremor come up through his feet and pass through his body. "Is that another earthquake?" asked Lester anxiously. "No, I think it's just the vibration from their conversation. They're so much bigger than we are that all their sounds are pitched much lower. Probably the vibrations aren't perceived as sound at all, but directly as sensations of a different kind." "You know," said Sabina, "There's something about her — well, I can't be sure, of course, but I get the impression that's his mother." "You can't prove anything by me," said George. "As Lester would say, I see no sign of sects." "She seems to be bawling him out about something. She's pointing with one of her arms. What's she pointing to, George?" "Wait a minute, and I'll focus the range finder. Say — that's strange!" "What is it, Pop?" asked Lester. "A wall. It wasn't there when we landed. A rough red wall in front of the mountain-trees. And it turns to blue over at the side." "And further over," cried Sabina, "it's yellow." "Let's figure this out. If it wasn't there yesterday, then they're the ones who have put it up. But why? The top of the wall seems to be pretty even —" He stopped, with a strange puzzled look in his eyes. Sabina said, "Why, of course, I should have known at once. It's the family wash!" "You mean the giants wash their clothes?" demanded Jerry. "Why should they do that?" "You wouldn't understand, but I think they don't like dirt. Really, they're very human." "They're dopey. Who's afraid of dirt?" demanded Jerry. "But why did she point to the wash, Mom?" asked Lester. "Yeah, and why is she bawling him out?" asked her other large son. "When you bawl us out, Mom — hey, what's she doing that for?" George had focused on the two giants again. Now, as they watched, they saw a great arm swing and make contact with the smaller giant's face. The young one went down, the thud bouncing the ship an inch off the ground. And then the entire vessel shook with a series of violent vibrations. "The nasty thing," said Sabina. "She slapped him in the face and knocked him down. And he's crying! That's what's shaking the ship!" "Well, he'd better stop crying," said.George crossly. "How can I do any work with all this shaking going on?" "But why did she hit him, Ma?" persisted Jerry. "She's just got a nasty streak in her," said Sabina, looking mad. "I'd like to give that woman a piece of my mind." "Oh, don't get worked up about it," said George. "She must have had some good reason —" He focused on the wall again. "Look there — that green part. With a great patch of brown right in the middle. Dirt! He dirtied her wash!" "That's still no reason to hit a child. Things like that happen all the time." "Maybe she hasn't had the advantage of a book on child psychology," said George. "Cut it out, Sabina. Stop trying to run other people's business for them. Personally, I can understand how she feels. Sometimes when Carl starts his yapping I've wanted to wallop that kid so hard —" "Don't you dare lay a finger on that poor child," said Sabina warningly, and Carl, scenting danger, edged closer to her. "I'm not threatening him. I'm just telling you the way I feel — sometimes. And I'll bet you feel the same way, too — sometimes." "I do not. I'll admit that occasionally I'm annoyed with him, but I never hit him." "Well, it seems to me I remember that about a week ago —" "Hey, Pop," said Jerry. "She went away. He's picking himself up. He's patting his pet!" "After all that sympathy your mother was wasting on him. Anyway, the ship isn't shaking any more. I'm getting to work again," said George. For a while there was a coolness between him and Sabina. But once he became absorbed in his work again, he forgot about it. And after he had been working for another few hours, he allowed Sabina to coax him into going swimming with them. He was slowing down, he admitted. He'd work all the faster and more efficiently for a slight change. And the water was so delicious, Sabina assured him, that she didn't want him to miss it. Carl had suddenly fallen asleep again, and Sabina was sure he wouldn't awaken for at least an hour. They left him in the ship, with the door open, as they trekked down to the pool in the forest of grass. To the giants it was probably merely a wet spot in the fields, left over from the last rain. But to human beings it was a fair-sized swimming hole, almost thirty feet long, and at least twenty wide. The only place that was over his head was in the center. They left two rifles at the edges of the pool, one at each side, so that no matter from which of the two directions danger approached they'd be able to get to a weapon. But once he had dived in, George forgot all about danger. This was a pleasure he hadn't had in a long time. He was a little out of practise, but with the low gravity of the planet, it didn't take much energy to leap and dive around, and the swimming was just as delicious as Sabina had said it would be. He had just come out to dry off when the ominous sound of some body crashing through the grass smote his ears. Almost the next second, it seemed, shadows loomed above them. It was the giant child and his pet. George grabbed his rifle and swung around bravely to face the danger and defend his family. The ground shook from the leaping of the pet, and the wind from the great creature's approach whistled about their ears. The thing was coming straight at them. George raised the rifle, aimed — although that was hardly necessary in view of the size of his target — and fired. The animal roared (the sound must have been a high yelp compared to the usual subsonic vibrations the creatures emitted, thought George). It swerved aside, stopped to poke at its body with a huge foot, and squirmed unhappily. George was about to order everybody back to the ship, when a human scream came to them. He swung around in the direction of the ship, and froze in terror. The giant kid had found the ship. He had picked it up and was examining it, holding it fairly close to his eyes, about six hundred feet above the ground. High up there George thought he could make out the tiny figure of Carl, near the open door. At any moment, Carl might drop out and plummet through the air to the ground far below. George raised his rifle again, but Sabina grabbed his arm. "Don't shoot," she panted. "The sting will only startle him, and he'll drop the ship. Wait." But waiting wasn't easy. The giant kid seemed to be very much interested, and he took an endless time to make up his mind. He held the ship at different angles in the palm of one of his hands, and then he tried to peer into it. Once he held it up to the side of his head. To his ears, thought George, although these were either invisible or unrecognizable to the human beings far below. He couldn't hear Carl any more. All the same, if I know that kid, thought George, he's still yelling. The giant can't hear him, though. To him, Carl's voice emits nothing but supersonic vibrations that his organs of hearing can't perceive. After a time the giant seemed to make up his mind. He bent down and put the ship back in the grass. He didn't place it down as carefully as a mother would have done, but it had only a few feet to fall before coming to rest, and George was sure that Carl hadn't received any serious shock. As the giant kid moved on, Sabina closed her eyes and swayed. George felt sure she was going to faint — he felt like fainting himself. But she didn't. She merely opened her eyes again and said, "Come on. I must find out what happened to him." As they rushed toward the ship, the reassuring sound of Carl's bawling met them. Carl was yelling, "I wanna go home! I wanna go home!" "I don't blame him," said George. "I want to go home myself." He fell into a seat, his legs suddenly weak. "When I think what that giant kid might have done —" "He didn't," said Sabina. "He was curious, but not vicious. There are many human children who wouldn't have behaved so well, George. When they find something small and helpless, they torture it and tear it to pieces." "Let's not make this sound any worse than it is," said George. "Carl is safe. Okay. Let's be thankful and do our best to see that we don't run into any more trouble. I've had all the swimming I need for a month. I'm going to finish up this repair job, with no more time out for fun." "But I can't get over that giant child," said Sabina. "So sweet and gentle. What sort of woman would strike a child like that I can't imagine. I don't think she's much of a mother." "It's none of your business, and there's nothing you can do about it. Now be quiet and take the kids out, and let me get on with my work." "We won't bother you, Pop," said Lester. "We'll be mump." "Mum, dear." "I can't get anything done with a lot of conversation going on. Sabina, please —" "Oh, all right, all right. But it seems to me that you're making most of the conversation yourself. Come, children, leave your father alone." "Can't I help him, Ma?" asked Jerry. "I could hand him the tools —" "Good idea. Let Jerry stay," said George. "Why should he stay and not me?" demanded Lester. "Mom, I wanna stay too. I got a right to stay if he stays, Mom." "He's older," said George. "He gets everything because he's older! It ain't fair! If he stays —" "Out!" said George. "Everybody!" He could hear the quarrel still going on as they went into the next room. They forgot to close the door, and he slammed it after them. It was a long afternoon. By the time the sun was touching the horizon, the children had been sent to sleep and he himself had finished his work. Repairs had been made, the ship was spaceworthy once more. Now to get it into the air and then into space. But here there was a difficulty. The ship had been tossed around several times after landing, and finally picked up and laid down again. Its stern pointed up into the air, its nose into the ground. It lay at an angle on its right side, like a stranded fish. Before taking off, it would have to be set right. "I'll have to maneuver it around for a little while," George told Sabina. "It'll take me at least a half hour to get it into position." "You can use your secondary jets. But, George, there's something you didn't think of. We're out here in the middle of a grass forest. And it's no longer wet, the way it was when we landed. The jets might set it on fire. In fact, they're sure to set it on fire." "So what? When the ship is sealed, it's heat proof." "Yes, but don't you see? The fire may spread and burn these poor giants out of house and home." "Look, Sabina, why worry about them? I thought you didn't like that woman, anyway." "I don't, but still it isn't the right thing to do. Nasty as she is, she doesn't deserve that. And the child would suffer too. And the father, if they have fathers." "But, Sabina, even if it does inconvenience them, with us it's a matter of life and death. We've got to get out of here." "I know, but —" "Now don't start getting sentimental about a bunch of giants. We have to look out for ourselves. Even if a fire starts, they can put it out. They can just stamp it out. All they have to do is put their big feet down — wait a minute, that's a thought." "About putting their feet down?" "Yes. The fire will start right away, but we'll have to stick around for a half hour or so. Suppose they come out here to put it out and step on us." "They might do that, George. So it would be better if you didn't start a fire." "But what am I going to do? Clear the forest away from around the ship? That would take days. And besides, that would attract their attention almost as much as a fire would. They'd come out to investigate what was making the grass disappear from the middle of their field." Sabina said, "I don't know what to say. Why don't we wait till morning, George? We can both of us use a night's rest. And in the morning we'll be able to think more clearly, and decide what to do." "I hate to stay here another night." "But nothing happens during the night, George. The giants sleep. And if they do come close, the vibrations from their footsteps will awaken us." "Well, I am tired — all right, Sabina, if you wish we'll get a night's rest and see what we can do in the morning." The short night passed quietly. In the morning the photometric alarm was set to wake them with the increase in light from the rising sun, after what turned out to be only four hours of sleep. George got out of bed yawning and protesting. Sabina didn't hear a sound, however, and it took Carl's bawling to awaken her. Jerry had got into a fight with Lester, and Lester, on the losing end because of his more tender years, had decided to take out his feelings on his still younger brother. Hence Carl's lamentations. The giants, if they were up, weren't about. Sabina prepared a hasty breakfast, and after they ate, George said, "I feel drugged. My eyes just keep closing. What was that stuff you were saying about being able to think more clearly in the morning?" "I don't know. What did I say?" "We have to get the ship in position to take off. Remember? And we don't want to use the jets for fear of starting a fire and attracting those giants." Jerry said, "Ma, can we go swimming this morning?" "No more swimming." "Aw , gee, Ma, just once more." "Stop nagging your mother," said George. "You're not leaving." "I wonder," said Sabina. "That giant child —" "What about him?" "If he knew what we wanted, he'd help us." "If he knew what we wanted — that's some idea! How could he possibly know? There's no method of communication we can use. It would take weeks even for one of our linguists to learn their vibration language." "Yes, I know, but — there must be some way, George." "If there is, you name it, and we'll do it." Carl, who was sitting on Sabina's lap, crawled down to the floor and pounced suddenly on a small' greenish object a couple of inches long. "Ship," he said. "I gotta ship." "What is it, Carl?" asked Lester. "Let me see!" "Mommy, he's trying to take it away from me!" "I just want to look at it, Ma! I want to see what it is!" "I'll look at it." Sabina examined the object curiously, then gave it hack to Carl. "It must be a grass seed," she said. "It must have fallen on our clothes, and been carried by one of us into the ship." "That's right, Mom," said Jerry. "Here's another one." "It's a ship," insisted Carl. "I gotta ship." "He thinks a grass seed is a ship. And I'll bet that giant kid," said George, "thought our ship was a funny kind of grass seed." "I hope he don't pick us up again," said Jerry. "Why not?" said Sabina. "George, maybe that's the answer! If we could get him to pick the ship up and hold it in the air, he'd keep turning it around, the way he did before, and sooner or later he'd point it up. And then you could jet off." "But we'd have the same difficulty we already talked about. How do we get him to pick up the ship? We can't explain anything." "We don't have to explain. Suppose you send a cloud of smoke through the jets. You could do that, couldn't you, George?" "Yes, I could do that." "Well, being curious, like any kid, he'd come over here to see what it was. And then he'd pick us up —" "We might get hurt," said Jerry. "We'd strap ourselves in position first. And Daddy would be at the controls, ready to start." "It's a possibility," admitted George. "Let's try it. Start strapping them in, Sabina, and I'll get some stalks of grass." A quarter of an hour later they were ready. And just about that time, the young giant and his pet made their appearance in the field, at a distance of ten thousand feet. George had brought some of the huge grass stalks into the ship. Now he put them into the chemical combustion chamber, started them burning with insufficient air, and sent a cloud of smoke through the jets. To the young giant, he thought, it must look like the faintest trickle of smoke. The chances were that the youngster would overlook it entirely. For a while nothing happened. Then the pet animal's face began to twitch. "He's sniffing!" cried Jerry. "He smells the smoke!" The animal bounced toward them, its master following. Now the young giant caught sight of the trickle of smoke, and he paused. George began shooting smoke through the jets as fast as he could. The giant came cautiously closer and bent down, as if afraid that some insect would sting him. His face blotted the sky from the visor He was picking the ship up. George whirled head over heels, but like the others he was strapped into position, and being upside down in the low gravity wasn't so bad. Carl, however, didn't like it. He yelled for his mother. There came a bad ten seconds when the giant youngster shook the ship, probably listening to see if anything rattled inside. That didn't feel so good, and Carl began to bawl even louder. Then the ship righted, and for a moment its nose pointed ahead and up. George pressed the button which set the engine to firing. The ship spurted ahead, probably leaving the giant youngster with all his mouths open in surprise. They were 400 feet over the grass tops now. A red wall loomed ahead, more than 1000 feet high, and there was no chance to clear it. They tore straight through, hardly feeling the shock, and then George pointed the nose of the ship up still more sharply, and soon they had skimmed the edge of the mountain trees and were rising higher and higher. George breathed a sigh of relief, and began to unstrap himself. "Okay," he said. "We made it. We can go home now." "That poor kid," said Sabina. "What? I'm sure I didn't hurt him. If he had the middle of the ship in the palm of his hand, the jets probably sent the exhaust into the air, and didn't even get his hand hot. At worst we might have given him a slight scorching that he'll get over fast." I don't mean that," said Sabina. "But that red wall — we went right through it. We ruined the garment, whatever it was." "I suppose his mother can patch it up." "That isn't what I mean either. Don't you see, George, they don't know w nit us, and it he tries to explain, a nasty woman like her won't believe him. She's sure to blame him for whatever happened. She'll beat him." "I'm sorry. I guess he can take it, though." "But it hurts to see a woman of her kind mistreat a child so. And he's such a sweet child. Such a beautiful disposition, so thoughtful and kindhearted. I'd hate to think she might break his spirit." What do you say to a wife who talks like that? George demanded of himself. He could think of nothing suitable, and he just grunted. Carl cried suddenly, "I don't wanna go home. I wanna go back to the playground. I wanna go swimmin'!" "Shut up, Carl!" cried Sabina, turning on him savagely. "Shut up, or I'll give you a spanking you'll never forget! I'm sick and tired of your whining!" Amazed at this sudden outburst from a parent from whom he had expected sympathy, Carl closed his mouth. "He's really a doll." "Carl?" "No, that giant child, of course. And with a mother like that!" Situation normal, thought George. And he headed the ship for home. Bedside Manner SHE AWOKE, and didn't even wonder where she was. First there were feelings—a feeling of existence, a sense of still being alive when she should be dead, an awareness of pain that made her body its playground. After that, there came a thought. It was a simple thought, and her mind blurted it out before she could stop it: Oh, God, now I won't even be plain any more. I'll be ugly. The thought sent a wave of panic coursing through her, but she was too tired to experience any emotion for long, and she soon drowsed off. Later, the second time she awoke, she wondered where she was. There was no way of telling. Around her all was black and quiet. The blackness was solid, the quiet absolute. She was aware of pain again--not sharp pain this time, but dull, spread throughout her body. Her legs ached; so did her arms. She tried to lift them, and found to her surprise that they did not respond. She tried to flex her fingers, and failed. She was paralyzed. She could not move a muscle of her body. The silence was so complete that it was frightening. Not a whisper of sound reached her. She had been on a spaceship, but none of a ship's noises came to her now. Not the creak of an expanding joint, nor the occasional slap of metal on metal. Not the sound of Fred's voice, nor even the slow rhythm of her own breathing. It took her a full minute to figure out why, and when she had done so she did not believe it. But the thought persisted, and soon she knew that it was true. The silence was complete because she was deaf. Another thought: The blackness was so deep because she was blind. And still another, this time a questioning one: Why, if she could feel pain in her arms and legs, could she not move them? What strange form of paralysis was this? She fought against the answer, but slowly, inescapably, it formed in her mind. She was not paralyzed at all. She could not move her arms and legs because she had none. The pains she felt were phantom pains, conveyed by the nerve endings without an external stimulus. When this thought penetrated, she fainted. Her mind sought in unconsciousness to get as close to death as it could. When she awoke, it was against her will. She sought desperately to close her mind against thought and feeling, just as her eyes and ears were already closed. But thoughts crept in despite her. Why was she alive? Why hadn't she died in the crash? Fred must certainly have been killed. The asteroid had come into view suddenly; there had been no chance of avoid­ing it. It had been a miracle that she herself had escaped, if escape it could be called—a mere sightless, armless and legless torso, with no means of communication with the outside world, she was more dead than alive. And she could not believe that the miracle had been repeated with Fred. It was better that way. Fred wouldn't have to look at her and shudder—and he wouldn't have to worry about himself, either. He had always been a handsome man, and it would have killed him a second time to find himself maimed and horrible. She must find a way to join him, to kill herself. It would be difficult, no doubt, without arms or legs, without any way of knowing her surroundings; but sooner or later she would think of a way. She had heard somewhere of people strangling themselves by swallowing their own tongues, and the thought cheered her. She could at least try that right now. She could-- No, she couldn't. She hadn't realized it before, but she had no tongue. She didn't black out at this sudden awareness of a new hor­ror, although she desperately wanted to. She thought: I can make an effort of will, I can force myself to die. Die, you fool, you helpless lump of flesh. Die and end your torture, die, die, die... But she didn't. And after a while, a new thought came to her: She and Fred had been the only ones on their ship; there had been no other ship near them. Who had kept her from dying? Who had taken her crushed body and stopped the flow of blood and tended her wounds and kept her alive? And for what purpose? The silence gave no answer. Nor did her own mind. After an age, she slept again. When she awoke, a voice said, "Do you feel better?" I can hear! She shouted to herself. It's a strange voice, a most unusual accent. I couldn't possibly have imagined it. I'm not deaf! Maybe I'm not blind either! Maybe I just had a nightmare-- "I know that you cannot answer. But do not fear. You will soon be able to speak again." Who was it? Not a man's voice, nor a woman's. It was curiously hoarse, and yet clear enough. Uninflected, and yet pleasant. A doctor? Where could a doctor have come from? "Your husband is also alive. Fortunately, we reached both of you at about the time death had just begun." Fortunately? She felt a flash of rage. You should have let us die. It would be bad enough to be alive by myself, a helpless cripple dependent upon others. But to know that Fred is alive too is worse. To know that he has a picture of me like this, ugly and horrifying, is more than I can stand. With any other man it would be bad enough, but with Fred it's un­endurable. Give me back the ability to talk, and the first thing I'll ask of you is to kill me. I don't want to live. "It may reassure you to know that there will be no difficulty about recovering the use of the limbs proper to you, and the organs of sensation. It will take time, but there is no doubt about the final outcome." What nonsense, she asked herself, was this? Doctors had done wonders in the creation and fitting of artificial arms and legs, but he seemed to be promising her the use of real limbs. And he had said, "organs of sensation." That didn't sound as if he meant that she'd see and hear electronically. It meant-- Nonsense. He was making a promise he couldn't keep. He was just saying that to make her feel better, the way doctors did. He was saying it to give her courage, keep her moral up, make her feel that it was worth fighting. But it wasn't worth fighting. She had no courage to keep up. She wanted only to die. “Perhaps you have already realized that I am not what you would call human. However, I suggest that you do not worry too much about that. I shall have no difficulty in reconstructing you properly according to your own standards." Then the voice ceased, and she was left alone. It was just as well, she thought. He had said too much. And she couldn't answer, nor ask questions of her own . . . and she had so many. He wasn't human? Then what was he? And how did he come to speak a human language? And what did he mean to do with her after he had reconstructed her? And what would she look like after she was reconstructed? There were races, she knew, that had no sense of beauty. Or if they had one, it wasn't like a human sense of beauty. Would he consider her properly reconstructed if he gave her the right number of arms and legs, and artificial organs of sight that acted like eyes—and made her look like some creature out of Hell? Would he be proud of his handiwork, as human doctors had been known to be, when their patients ended up alive and helpless, their bodies scarred, their organs functioning feebly and imperfectly? Would he turn her into something that Fred would look at with abhorrence and disgust? Fred had always been a little too sensitive to beauty in women. He had been able to pick and choose at his will, and until he had met her he had always chosen on the basis of looks alone. She had never understood why he had married her. Perhaps the fact that she was the one woman he knew who wasn't beautiful had made her stand out. Perhaps, too, she told herself, there was a touch of cruelty in his choice. He might have wanted someone who wasn't too sure of herself, someone he could count on under all circumstances. She remembered how people had used to stare at them—the handsome man and the plain woman—and then whisper among themselves, wondering openly how he had ever come to marry her. Fred had liked that; she was sure he had liked that. He had obviously wanted a plain wife. Now he would have an ugly one. Would he want that? She slept on her questions, and waked and slept repeatedly. And then, one day, she heard the voice again. And to her surprise, she found that she could answer back—slowly, un­certainly, at times painfully. But she could speak once more. "We have been working on you," said the voice. "You are coming along nicely." "Am I—am I—" she found difficulty asking: "How do I look?" "Incomplete." "I must be horrible." A slight pause. "No. Not horrible at all. Not to me. Merely incomplete." "My husband wouldn't think so." "I do not know what your husband would think. Perhaps he is not used to seeing incomplete persons. He might even be horrified at the sight of himself." "I—I hadn't thought of that. But he—we'll both be all right?" "As a medical problem, you offer no insuperable difficulty. None at all." "Why—why don't you give me eyes, if you can? Are you afraid—afraid that I might see you and find you—terrifying?" Again a pause. There was amusement in the reply. "I do not think so. No, that is not the reason." "Then it's because—as you said about Fred—I might find myself horrifying?" "That is part of the reason. Not the major part, however. You see, I am, in a way, experimenting. Do not be alarmed, please—I shall not turn you into a monster. I have too much knowledge of biology for that. But I am not too familiar with human beings. What I know I have learned mostly from your books, and I have found that in certain respects there are inaccuracies contained in them—I must go slowly until I can check what they say. I might mend certain organs, and then discover that they do not have the proper size or shape, or that they produce slightly altered hormones. I do not want to make such mistakes, and if I do make them, I wish to correct them before they can do harm." "There's no danger—?" "None, I assure you. Internally and externally, you will be as before." "Internally and externally. Will I—will I be able to have children?" "Yes. We ourselves do not have your distinctions of sex, but we are familiar with them in many other races. We know how important you consider them. I am taking care to see that the proper glandular balance is maintained in both yourself and your husband." "Thank you—Doctor. But I still don't understand—why don't you give me eyes right away?" "I do not wish to give you eyes that see imperfectly, and then be forced to take them away. Nor do I want you to watch imperfect arms and legs developing. It would be an unnecessary ordeal. When I am sure that everything is as it should be, then I shall start your eyes." "And my husband—" "He will be reconstructed in the same way. He will be brought in to talk to you soon." "And you don't want either of us to see the other in—in imperfect condition?" "It would be inadvisable. I can assure you now that when I have completed your treatment you will almost exactly be as you were in the beginning. When that time comes you will be able to use your eyes." She was silent a moment. He said, "Your husband had other questions. I am waiting to hear you ask them too." "I'm sorry, Doctor . . . I wasn't listening. What did you say?" He repeated his remarks, and she said, "I do have other questions. But—no, I won't ask them yet. What did my husband want to know?" "About me and my race. How we happened to find you in time to save you. Why we saved you. What we intend to do with you after you are reconstructed." "Yes, I've wondered about those things too." "I can give you only a partial answer. I hope you do not find it too unsatisfactory. My race, as you may have gathered, is somewhat more advanced than yours. We have had a head start," he added politely. "If you can grow new arms and legs and eyes," she said, "you must be thousands of years ahead of us." "We can do many other things, of which there is no need to talk. All I need say now is that I am a physician attached to a scouting expedition. We have had previous contact with human beings, and have taken pains to avoid coming to their attention. We do not want to alarm or confuse them." "But all the same, you rescued us." "It was an emergency. We are not human, but we have, you might say, humanitarian feelings. We do not like to see crea­tures die, even inferior creatures—not that you are, of course," he added delicately. "Our ship happened to be only a few thousand miles away when it happened. We saw, and acted with great speed. Once you are whole again, we shall place you where you will be found by your own kind, and proceed on our way. By that time, our expedition will have been completed." "When we are whole again—Doctor, will I be exactly the same as before?" "In some ways, perhaps even better. I can assure you that all your organs will function perfectly." "I don't mean that. I mean—will I look the same?" She felt that there was astonishment in the pause. "Look the same? Does that matter?" "Yes . . . oh, yes, it matters! It matters more than anything else." He must have been regarding her as if she were crazy. Suddenly she was glad that she had no eyes to see his bewil­derment. And his contempt, which, she was sure, must be there too. He said slowly, "I didn't realize. But, of course, we don't know how you did look. How can we make you look the same?" "I don't know. But you must! You must!" Her voice rose, and she felt the pain in her throat as the new muscles con­stricted. "You are getting hysterical," he said. "Stop thinking about this." "But I can't stop thinking about it. It's the only thing I can think of! I don't want to look any different from the way I did before!" He said nothing, and suddenly she felt tired. A moment before she had been so excited, so upset; and now—merely tired and sleepy. She wanted to go to sleep and forget it all. He must have given me a sedative, she thought. An injection? I didn't feel the prick of the needle, but maybe they don't use needles. Anyway, I'm glad he did. Because now I won't have to think, I won't be able to think-- She slept. When she awoke again, she heard a new voice. A voice she couldn't place. It said, "Hello, Margaret. Where are you?" "Who ... Fred!" "Margaret?" "Y-yes." "Your voice is different." "So is yours. At first I couldn't think who was speaking to me!" "It's strange it took us so long to realize that our voices would be different." She said shakily, "We're more accustomed to thinking of how we look." He was silent. His mind had been on the same thing. "Your new voice isn't bad, Fred," she said after a moment. "I like it. It's a little deeper, a little more resonant. It will go well with your personality. The Doctor has done a good job." "I'm trying to think whether I like yours. I don't know. I suppose I'm the kind of guy who likes best what he's used to." "I know. That's why I didn't want him to change my looks." Again silence. She said, "Fred?" "I'm still here." "Have you talked to him about it?" "He's talked to me. He's told me about your being wor­ried." "Don't you think it matters?" "Yes, I suppose it does. He told me he could do a good technical job—leave us with regular features and unblem­ished skins." "That isn't what I want," she said fiercely. "I don't want the kind of regular features that come out of physiology books. I want my own features. I don't care so much about the voice, but I want my own face back!" "That's a lot to ask for. Hasn't he done enough for us?" "No. Nothing counts unless I have that. Do—do you think that I'm being silly?" "Well—" "I don't want to be beautiful, because I know you don't want me to be." He sounded amazed. "Whoever told you that?" "Do you think that after living with you for two years, I don't know? If you had wanted a beautiful wife, you'd have married one. Instead, you chose me. You wanted to be the good-looking one of the family. You're vain, Fred. Don't try to deny it, because it would be no use. You're vain. Not that I mind it, but you are." "Are you feeling all right, Margaret? You sound—over­wrought." "I'm not. I'm being very logical. If I were either ugly or beautiful, you'd hate me. If I were ugly, people would pity you, and you wouldn't be able to stand that. And if I were beautiful, they might forget about you. I'm just plain enough for them to wonder why you ever married anyone so ordinary. I'm just the kind of person to supply background for you." After a moment he said slowly, "I never knew you had ideas like that about me. They're silly ideas. I married you because I loved you." "Maybe you did. But why did you love me?" He said patiently, "Let's not go into that. The fact is, Margaret, that you're talking nonsense. I don't give a damn whether you're ugly or beautiful—well, no, that isn't strictly true. I do care—but looks aren't the most important thing. They have very little to do with the way I feel about you. I love you for the kind of person you are. Everything else is secondary." "Please, Fred, don't lie to me. I want to be the same as before, because I know that's the way you want me. Isn't there some way to let the Doctor know what sort of appearance we made? You have—had—a good eye. Maybe you could describe us—" "Be reasonable, Margaret. You ought to know that you can't tell anything from a description." His voice was almost pleading. "Let's leave well enough alone. I don't care if your features do come out of the pictures in a physiology textbook—" "Fred!" she said excitedly. "That's it! Pictures! Remember that stereo shot we had taken just before we left Mars? It must be somewhere on the ship—" "But the ship was crushed, darling. It's a total wreck." "Not completely. If they could take us out alive, there must have been some unhurt portions left. Maybe the stereo is still there!" "Margaret, you're asking the impossible. We don't know where the ship is. This group the Doctor is with is on a scout­ing expedition. The wreck of our ship may have been left far behind. They're not going to retrace their tracks just to find it." "But it's the only way . . . the only way! There's nothing else—" She broke down. If she had possessed eyes, she would have wept—but as it was, she could weep only internally. They must have taken him away, for there was no answer to her tearless sobbing. And after a time, she felt suddenly that there was nothing to cry about. She felt, in fact, gay and cheerful—and the thought struck her: The Doctor's given me another drug. He doesn't want me to cry. Very well, I won't. I'll think of things to make me happy, I'll bubble over with good spirits. Instead, she fell into a dreamless sleep. When she awoke again, she thought of the conversation with Fred, and the feeling of desperation returned. I'll have to tell the Doctor all about it, she thought. I'll have to see what he can do. I know it's asking an awful lot, but without it, all the rest he has done for me won't count. Better to be dead than be different from what I was. But it wasn't necessary to tell the Doctor. Fred had spoken to him first. So Fred admits it's important too. He won't be able to deny any longer that I judged him correctly. The Doctor said, "What you are asking is impossible." "Impossible? You won't even try?" "My dear patient, the wrecked ship is hundreds of millions of miles behind us. The expedition has its appointed task. It cannot retrace its steps. It cannot waste time searching the emptiness of space for a stereo which may not even exist any longer." "Yes, you're right . . . I'm sorry I asked, Doctor." He read either her mind or the hopelessness in her voice. He said, "Do not make any rash plans. You cannot carry them out, you know." "I'll find a way. Sooner or later I'll find a way to do something to myself." "You are being very foolish. I cannot cease to marvel at how foolish you are. Are many human beings like you, psychologically?" "I don't know, Doctor. I don't care. I know only what's important to me!" "But to make such a fuss about the merest trifle! The difference in appearance between one human being and another of the same sex, so far as we can see, is insignificant. You must learn to regard it in its true light." "You think it's insignificant because you don't know anything about men and women. To Fred and me, it's the differ­ence between life and death." He said in exasperation, "You are a race of children. But sometimes even a child must be humored. I shall see what I can do." But what could he do? she asked herself. The ship was a derelict in space, and in it, floating between the stars, was the stereo he wouldn't make an attempt to find. Would he try to get a description from Fred? Even the best human artist couldn't produce much of a likeness from a mere verbal description. What could someone like the Doctor do—some­one to whom all men looked alike, and all women? As she lay there, thinking and wondering, she had only the vaguest idea of the passage of time. But slowly, as what must have been day followed day, she became aware of strange tingling sensations all over her body. The pains she had felt at first had slowly diminished and then vanished altogether. What she felt now was not pain at all. It was even mildly pleasant, as if some one were gently massaging her body, stretching her muscles, tugging at her. Suddenly she realized what it was: New limbs were grow­ing. Her internal organs must have developed properly, and now the Doctor had gone ahead with the rest of his treat­ment. With the realization, tears began to roll down her cheeks. Tears, she thought, real tears—I can feel them. I'm getting arms and legs, and I can shed tears. But I still have no eyes. But maybe they're growing in . . . From time to time I seem to see flashes of light. Maybe he's making them develop slowly, and he put the tear ducts in order first. I'll have to tell him that my eyes must be blue. Maybe I never was beautiful, but I always had pretty eyes. I don't want any different color. They wouldn't go with my face. The next time the Doctor spoke to her, she told him. "You may have your way," he said good-naturedly, as if humoring a child. "And, Doctor, about finding the ship again—" "Out of the question, as I told you. However, it will not be necessary." He paused, as if savoring what he had to tell her. "I checked with our records department. As might have been expected, they searched your shattered ship thoroughly, in the hope of finding information that might contribute to our understanding of your race. They have the stereos, about a dozen of them." "A dozen stereos? But I thought—" "In your excitement, you may have forgotten that there were more than one. All of them seem to be of yourself and your husband. However, they were obviously taken under a wide variety of conditions, and with a wide variety of equip­ment, for there are certain minor differences between them which even I, with my non-human vision, can detect. Perhaps you can tell us which one you prefer us to use as a model." She said slowly, "I had better talk about that with my husband. Can you have him brought in here, Doctor?" "Of course." She lay there, thinking. A dozen stereos. And there was still only one that she remembered. Only a single one. They had posed for others, during the honeymoon and shortly after, but those had been left at home on Mars before they started on their trip. Fred's new voice said, "How are you feeling, dear?" "Strange. I seem to have new limbs growing in." "So do I. Guess we'll be our old selves pretty soon." "Will we?" She could imagine his forehead wrinkling at the intona­tion of her voice. "What do you mean, Margaret?" "Hasn't the Doctor told you? They have the stereos they found on our ship. Now they can model our new faces after our old." "That's what you wanted, isn't it?" "But what do you want, Fred? I remember only a single one, and the Doctor says they found a dozen. And he says that my face differs from shot to shot." Fred was silent. "Are they as beautiful as all that, Fred?" "You don't understand, Margaret." "I understand only too well. I just want to know—were they taken before we were married or after?" "Before, of course. I haven't gone out with another girl since our wedding." "Thank you, dear." Her own new voice had venom in it, and she caught herself. I musn't talk like that, she thought. I know Fred, I know his weakness. I knew them before I married him. I have to accept them and help him, not rant at him for them. He said, "They were just girls I knew casually. Good-look­ing, but nothing much otherwise. Not in a class with you." "Don't apologize." This time her voice was calm, even amused. "You couldn't help attracting them. Why didn't you tell me that you kept their pictures?" "I thought you'd be jealous." "Perhaps I would have been, but I'd have got over it. Anyway, Fred, is there any one of them you liked particularly?" He became wary, she thought. His voice was expressionless as he said, "No. Why?" "Oh, I thought that perhaps you'd want the Doctor to make me look like her." "Don't be silly, Margaret! I don't want you to look like anybody but yourself. I don't want to see their empty faces ever again!" "But I thought—" "Tell the Doctor to keep the other stereos. Let him put them in one of his museums, with other dead things. They don't mean anything to me any more. They haven't meant anything for a long time. The only reason I didn't throw them away is because I forgot they were there and didn't think of it." "All right, Fred. I'll tell him to use our picture as a model." "The AC studio shot. The close-up. Make sure he uses the right one." "I'll see that there's no mistake." "When I think I might have to look at one of their mugs for the rest of my life, I get a cold sweat. Don't take any chances, Margaret. It's your face I want to see, and no one else's." "Yes, dear." I'll be plain, she thought, but I'll wear well. A background always wears well. Time can't hurt it much, because there's nothing there to hurt. There's one thing I overlooked, though. How old will we look? The Doctor is rather insensitive about human faces, and he might age us a bit. He mustn't do that. It'll be all right if he wants to make us a little younger, but not older. I'll have to warn him. She warned him, and again he seemed rather amused at her. "All right," he said, "you will appear slightly younger. Not too much so, however, for from my reading I judge it best for a human face to show not too great a discrepancy from the physiological age." She breathed a sigh of relief. It was settled now, all settled. Everything would be as before—perhaps just a little better. She and Fred could go back to their married life with the knowledge that they would be as happy as ever. Nothing exuberant, of course, but as happy as their own peculiar natures permitted. As happy as a plain and worried wife and a handsome husband could ever be. Now that this had been decided, the days passed slowly. Her arms and legs grew, and her eyes too. She could feel the beginnings of fingers and toes, and on the sensitive optic nerve the flashes of light came with greater and greater fre­quency. There were slight pains from time to time, but they were pains she welcomed. They were the pains of growth, of return to normalcy. And then came the day when the Doctor said, "You have recovered. In another day, as you measure time, I shall remove your bandages." Tears welled up in her new eyes. "Doctor, I don't know how to thank you." "No thanks are needed. I have only done my work." "What will you do with us now?" "There is an old freighter of your people which we have found abandoned and adrift. We have repaired it and stocked it with food taken from your own ship. You will awaken inside the freighter and be able to reach your own people." "But won't I—can't I even get the chance to see you?" "That would be inadvisable. We have some perhaps pecu­liar ideas about keeping our nature secret. That is why we shall take care that you carry away nothing that we ourselves have made." "If I could only—well, even shake hands—do something—" "I have no hands." "No hands? But how could you—how can you—do such complicated things?" "I may not answer. I am sorry to leave you in a state of bewilderment, but I have no choice. Now, please, no more questions about me. Do you wish to talk to your husband for a time before you sleep again?" "Must I sleep? I feel so excited . . . I want to get out of bed, tear off my bandages, and see what I look like!" "I take it that you are not anxious to speak to your hus­band yet." "I want to see myself first!" "You will have to wait. During your last sleep, your new muscles will be exercised, their tones and strength built up. You well receive a final medical examination. It is most important." She started to protest once more, but he stopped her. "Try to be calm. I can control your feelings with drugs, but it is better that you control yourself. You will be able to give vent to your excitement later. And now I must leave you. You will not hear from me after this." "Never again?" "Never again. Goodbye." For a moment she felt something cool and dry and rough laid very lightly against her forehead. She tried to reach for him, but could only twitch her new hands on her new wrists. She said, with a sob, "Goodbye, Doctor." When she spoke again, there was no answer. She slept. This time, the awakening was different. Before she opened her eyes, she heard the creaking of the freighter, and a slight hum that might have come from the firing of the jets. As she tried to sit up, her eyes flashed open, and she saw that she was lying in a bunk, strapped down to keep from being thrown out. Unsteadily, she began to loosen the straps. When they were half off, she stopped to stare at her hands. They were strong hands, well-shaped and supple, with a healthily tanned skin. She flexed them and unflexed them several times. Beautiful hands. The Doctor had done well by her. She finished undoing the straps, and got to her feet. There was none of the dizziness she had expected, none of the weakness that would have been normal after so long a stay in bed. She felt fine. She examined herself, staring at her legs, body—staring as she might have done at a stranger's legs and body. She took a few steps forward and then back. Yes, he had done well by her. It was a graceful body, and it felt fine. Better than new. But her face! She whirled around to locate a mirror, and heard a voice: "Margaret!" Fred was getting out of another bunk. Their eyes sought each other's face, and for a long moment they stared in silence. Fred said in a choked voice, "There must be a mirror in the captain's cabin. I've got to see myself." At the mirror, their eyes shifted from one face to the other and back again. And the silence this time was longer, more painful. A wonderful artist, the Doctor. For a creature—a person—who was insensitive to the differences in human faces, he could follow a pattern perfectly. Feature by feature, they were as before. Size and shape of forehead, dip of hairline, width of cheeks and height of cheekbones, shape and color of eyes, contour of nose and lips and chin—nothing in the two faces had been changed. Nothing at all. Nothing, that is, but the overall effect. Nothing but the fact that where before she had been plain, now she was beautiful. I should have realized the possibility, she thought. Sometimes you see two sisters, or mother and daughter, with the same features, the faces as alike as if they had been cast from the same mold—and yet one is ugly and the other beautiful. Many artists can copy features, but few can copy with perfect exactness either beauty or ugliness. The Doctor slipped up a little. Despite my warning, he's done too well by me. And not well enough by Fred. Fred isn't handsome any more. Not ugly really—his face is stronger and more in­teresting than it was. But now I'm the good-looking one of the family. And he won't be able to take it. This is the end for us. Fred was grinning at her. He said, "Wow, what a wife I've got! Just look at you! Do you mind if I drool a bit?" She said uncertainly, "Fred, dear, I'm sorry." "For what? For his giving you more than you bargained for—and me less? It's all in the family!" "You don't have to pretend, Fred. I know how you feel." "You don't know a thing. I asked him to make you beau­tiful. I wasn't sure he could, but I asked him anyway. And he said he'd try." "You asked him—oh, no!" "Oh, yes," he said. "Are you sorry? I hoped he'd do better for me, but well, did you marry me for my looks?" "You know better, Fred!" "I didn't marry you for yours either. I told you that before, but you wouldn't believe me. Maybe now you will.” Her voice choked. "Perhaps—perhaps looks aren't so im­portant after all. Perhaps I've been all wrong about everything. I used to think was essential." "You have," agreed Fred. "But you've always had a sense of inferiority about your appearance. From now on, you'll have no reason for that. And maybe now we'll both be able to grow up a little." She nodded. It gave her a strange feeling to have him put around her a pair of arms she had never before known, to have him kiss her with lips she had never before touched. But that doesn't matter, she thought. The important thing is that whatever shape we take, we're us. The important thing is that now we don't have to worry about ourselves—and for that we have to thank him. "Fred," she said suddenly, her face against his chest. "Do you think a girl can be in love with two—two people—at the same time? And one of them—one of them not a man? Not even human?" He nodded, but didn't say anything. And after a moment, she thought she knew why. A man can love that way too, she thought—and one of them not a woman, either. I wonder if he . . . she . . . it knew. I wonder if it knew. Heads You Lose By WILLIAM MORRISON Illustrated by CAVAT When it comes to mislaying things—Anything and everything—It's Georgie all the way! "If your head wasn't stuck on, I'll bet you'd lose that too!" Sarcastic remark directed by Mmes. Smith, Jones, Cohen, Robinson and innumerable other mothers at Masters Smith, Jones, Cohen, Robinson and innumerable other sons, respectively. LARRY'S head wasn't stuck on, but he hadn't lost it. At least, not yet. And he wasn't going to lose it, he told himself resentfully, no matter what his mother said. He might lose books and gloves and pencils and pens, and even his little brother Georgie, but they were things that didn't amount to much anyway. His head—that was something different. As for Georgie—that kid was a pain in the neck. He could never find his way and, if you so much as let him out of your sight for a minute, he was gone. That was what had happened when they were crossing the woods. It wasn't his fault that Georgie had got lost, it was the kid's own fault. Why, when Larry was four, he knew his way around. He didn't have to be guided the way Georgie did. And now, there was all this noise and carrying on, with his father running around calling the police, and his mother crying, and everybody looking at him as if he did something wrong, when it was all Georgie's fault. He was glad when they sent him up to his own room to go to sleep, and locked the door on him to keep him from causing any more trouble. Not that he could sleep, but at least he was alone, and he didn't have people looking at him as if he had done something terrible. "If they let me, I could find Georgie," he said to himself. HE looked out the window and, in the darkness, he saw the beams of dozens of flashlights, as the searching parties were organized and sent out. He could hear dogs barking in the distance. Maybe they're bloodhounds, he thought, and resentment seized him. He had always wanted a dog as a pet, but his mother and father had never bought him one. And now, all those dogs, even bloodhounds, for Georgie! All that trouble and excitement over one kid who ought to be able to find his own way home, if he had any brains. "Grownups are jerks," he decided. Suddenly, as he was staring out at the light flashing in the darkness, he felt himself slipping. He had never slipped this way before, and at first the strange sensation frightened and baffled him. His feet shot out from under him in one direction, his head lurched in another. Before he knew what had happened, his head was falling out the window. He gave a short cry of alarm. His head—"Mother was right," he thought, "I've lost my head! No, that isn't so — I'm here — it's my body that I've lost! I've got to get back to it!" No sooner thought than done—almost done, anyway. His head hopped up toward the window. But Larry's feeling of elation at the thought that he could fly made him overshoot his mark. Now he would have to drop down again, then float sidewise, to regain his body. "But why?" he asked himself. "This feels good, this is real fun. Of course I've dreamed of flying—or was it more than a dream? Lots of times, when I'm just on the point of falling asleep, I seem to float out of my bed down the stairs and right out of the house. Oh, it's a great feeling, but not as great as this. No, sir, not as great as this." He let himself drift away from the window. "I can go anywhere I want to," he told himself with delight. "Up, down, sidewise—even a bird can't do what I can do. But I still can't see why. How did I learn it?" The answer came to him as he floated in a circle, thinking. "It's the practice," he decided sagely. "All those bedtimes, when I've been flying around with my body dragging after me, I've been learning how to do it. Just like I learned to swim with water wings. And when I really knew how, the water wings didn't help any more, they were in the way. Now my body is in the way. It was never absolutely necessary. Now, suddenly, I just can fly without thinking about it. It's all in the head. That's what does all the work of flying. "Oh, boy, wouldn't Mother be upset if she knew. She talks about my losing my head—and I lost my body instead! What a joke on her! What a funny joke!" "And you know what?" he added, carrying on the conversation with himself. "You know what would be even more of a joke? Suppose I used my head to find Georgie? That would show them! That would make their eyes pop open! Yes, sir, that's what I'm going to do!" WHAT a surprise they'd have if they looked up and saw him! But nobody was looking, nobody noticed his head float gently away from the window. He kept it in the shadow, wherever he could, but nobody even thought of looking up. Only one of the bloodhounds bayed mournfully as the dark object flew by. His head chuckled to itself as it flew gaily over the house—quietly, of course, because Larry was not yet ready to share the joke. His head grinned as it flew, with a burst of elation, over the lines of parked cars. It looped the loop quite unnecessarily as it approached the highway, then zoomed up out of the circle of illumination cast by a large light-bulb. The men in the searching parties were wasting a lot of time moving back and forth, wandering around aimlessly as they tried to pick up Georgie's trail. "The dopes," he thought, "they'll never find him that way." His head gave them an example of calm efficiency and wasted no time. It flew straight as an arrow to the strawberry patch, where Georgie had lingered to pick the wild berries. Georgie was a kid who loved to eat, especially desserts. Larry's head would have grown hot under the collar—if it had had a collar—as he thought of how many times he had battled Georgie over who would get the larger dish of ice cream or piece of pie. And now it was a sure thing that, after he had got lost, Georgie would try to get back to those strawberries. The trouble was that the patch was dark and a bit scary. There was only a half-moon overhead, and the sky was cloudy. The weak light that came through did little more than cast alarming shadows over everything. The strawberry plants looked like frightening gnomes crawling over the ground, and the few trees that Larry could see were like giants waiting to pounce. Some of the elation had gone out of him. "Even a bigger kid than me would have a right to be scared," he told himself. Something brushed his cheek, and his head leaped suddenly away. Then he heard a deep mournful whistle that almost seemed to be asking a question. "Who?" it demanded. "Who?" "It's only an old owl," he told himself with relief. But the relief was only momentary. "Say, owls got sharp beaks, they can bite. And I don't have any hands or anything. Suppose — suppose he tries to bite me?" Another night bird flew by silently, visible only because it was a deeper black than the shadows. "Guess they're looking for insects," whispered Larry with relief. "They won't bother me. But if one of them does—I'll spit in his eye. I know I always tell Georgie it ain't nice to spit, but in this case it's the only thing to do." There was no sign of Georgie in the strawberry patch. If he was here at all, he was asleep, probably huddled up near one of the strawberry plants. "Georgie!" called his brother softly. "Georgie, where are you?" No answer. From the distance, Larry heard the baying of an occasional hound and the faint murmur of voices. "No use going where they're looking," thought Larry. "I'll go someplace else. Over there where the trees are thicker. That's the kind of place where Georgie could get lost. The little jerk." HE floated slowly over toward the trees. Strange how nice and quiet everything was. You couldn't even hear a cricket now, and the sounds from the search parties were faint and muffled. If it weren't for having to find Georgie, it would be a real pleasure being here. There were none of the noises you were always hearing in the daytime—birds singing and insects buzzing and chipmunks chirping. Most of the animals were asleep, and those that weren't thought it best to remain silent. He could feel a slight breath of wind from time to time, but it wasn't even enough to rustle the leaves. And then he saw it, only a dozen or so feet away, and stopped as if paralyzed in the air. First, his eyes opened wider than ever, and then his mouth, and then he yelled. An even shriller yell came from the thing he was scared of. "Georgie!" he cried. "Is that you?" What had scared him had been eyes, two great big eyes that seemed to be floating alone in the night. But that had been just a trick of the moonlight, because now he could see that the eyes were set in a dirty face, with two streaks running down them, probably from tears, and the hair above was tangled and full of burrs and fragments of leaves. "L-Larry?" said a tremulous voice. "Georgie, where were you? I was looking for you. Daddy and Mommy are looking for you, too." "I got lost," sobbed Georgie. "I told you to stick close to me. Anyway, we gotta go home now. You hold my hand—gosh, I forgot. I don't have any hand here." "But I can't go home yet, Larry. I'm lost." "You're not lost any more, dopey. I found you. I'll take you —oh!" Larry's eyes stared. When he saw Georgie's face, he had thought at first—he hadn't realized. "Say you don't have your body here either, do you, Georgie?" "My feet hurted." "Say, Georgie, I didn't know you could do that. I thought I was the only one who could send his head off by itself. When did you learn how?" "I don't know," said Georgie. "Maybe my head wasn't stuck on tight enough." "Not stuck on tight enough?" "Mommy told me, if it wasn't stuck on tight enough, I'd lose it. So I guess that's what happened." "You mean she told that to you, too?" "Yeah," said Georgie. "Lots of times. Whenever I lost something." "Why, I thought I was the only one she said that to!" FOR a moment he was struck with amazement, at this evidence of the duplicity of mothers. He was willing to bet that they say that to all their kids! Only they didn't know. If they really knew, what they'd say would be, "If your body wasn't stuck on, you'd lose that too." The head —why, that was you. You couldn't lose that. They were too old, he decided, their memories weren't so good. He guessed they'd forgotten what it was like to be kids themselves. His meditations were interrupted by a plaintive little wail from his brother. "Larry." "What's the matter?" Larry asked impatiently. "I'm hungry." "You're always hungry. But you can't eat now." "I wanna eat strawberries." "You dope, we don't have time to eat anything. We gotta get home. Besides, without hands, you couldn't even pick any strawberries. You'd have to just try to eat them off the plants, and you'd get all scratched up." "I'll cry if you don't let me eat them!" "Go ahead and cry. See if I care. I'll just fly away and leave you behind." "I don't care," said Georgie stubbornly. "I like strawberries. I'm gonna find my hands and eat a whole lot." "I won't stop you. But you're gonna get an awful licking if they find you eating strawberries in the middle of the night. Where are your hands and the rest of you, anyway?" "Over—over there." "Over where?" "I don't know. I'll find them." "You'll find them — oh, yes, you'll find them! Don't you see how dark it is? We'll have to look all over this place. You dopey kid!" Georgie closed his lips stubbornly, as he always did when he was insulted and wasn't quite sure whether he had given reason for the insult. "And another thing," said Larry. "What if the men who are looking for you find your body first?" "I don't care." "You better care. I can just imagine what Mom will say to you. Come on, let's start looking." Larry was becoming worried. But how did you look, when the light was so faint and the woods were so thick? Larry's head floated down closer toward the ground and Georgie, who, for all his defiant words, was very much afraid of being left alone, floated quickly after him. The ground was carpeted with leaves and twigs, and dried branches that had fallen off the trees. There were sinister-looking stumps and old dead trees that had long ago lost all their leaves and, here and there, Larry could detect a sour smell, as of wild cherries or mulberries that had fallen to the ground and rotted there. "You wouldn't leave your body in a place like this, would you, Georgie?" Georgie shook his head. It look ed funny, just turning there in the air, but the meaning was plain. They had to look elsewhere. That was all there was to it. It would have been a lot easier if Georgie could have given him a hint as to where to look, but Georgie could never remember where he put things, and now the one thought that seemed to have possession of him was that he was hungry. Larry felt that nobody ever had such a dopey little brother. THEY must have spent at least an hour, floating around and getting no place. And then, just as Georgie was becoming cranky and refusing to look any more, Larry was suddenly aware of the sound of voices, and the baying of dogs. "Hey, Georgie," he whispered. "We can't let them see us like this." "I don't care," said Georgie. "I'm hungry. I wanna eat strawberries." "They won't let you eat strawberries now. Come on, Georgie, come with me." Larry tried to float up, but the branches happened to be thick where he and Georgie were, and he scraped his face. Before he knew what he was doing, he said loudly, "Ouch!" A man's voice said sharply, "I thought I heard something." Larry stared straight at his brother. He wanted to put a finger to his lips to warn of silence, but without fingers that was impossible. So he merely whispered, "Shhhh! Do what I do, Georgie." And he floated to one side, looking for a less thickly wooded space through which he could get above the trees, and trying at the same time to avoid the lights that were flashing all over the place. The hounds must have scented them for, suddenly, they began to bark, all of them at once. At that, Larry flew a little faster and darted toward a clear space, above a tree that had been knocked down by lightning. No doubt about it now. The dogs must have caught sight of him, and they seemed to go crazy altogther. Larry put on full speed to get above tree level. Then he was skimming along and getting away from that place as fast as he could. It was only when he felt safe again that he turned around to look. There was no sign of Georgie, and he thought, "Oh, gosh, I've lost that dopey kid's head again." No use looking for it now, though. If Georgie's head went around looking for his and his for Georgie's, they'd be sure to miss each other. It always happened that way. Best thing to do was look for Georgie's body. Once found, that would stay put, at least until Georgie fitted his head back to it. He was flying along a road now, a narrow rutted road that led through the woods and, faintly he heard a motor chugging. A car was coming. He didn't want to get caught in the glow of the headlights, and he rose almost to the level of the treetops, where he'd be invisible. The car came along, the driver seeming to feel his way along the dark, narrow road. He was just about to pass, when something darted out silently past Larry's head. Ugh! he thought. A bat! And he jerked back to give the creature plenty of room. The next thing he knew, he felt a crack on top of his head and was aware that he was falling. And then he went to sleep. WHEN he awoke, he found himself bouncing up and down. He was on top of the car and his head ached. And the first thing he said to himself was, "Where am I?" He floated up a little from the car-top and looked around. He was still in the forest, but this part of it didn't seem familiar. "I'm lost," he said silently. "First Georgie loses his body, then I lose his head and now I lose my own head. What a mess!" He'd have to get back. The best way would be to follow the road. But suppose there was a fork in the road? Suppose he came to a crossroad? Which way should he take? The driver would know, the driver would be able to tell him. Flying alongside, the car, about on a level with the roof and a little to the left, Larry called out, "Hey, mister." The car swerved suddenly as if the very wheels were startled. Larry heard a choking voice say, "Huh?" "Look, mister," he said, "don't get excited. I just wanna aska question. How do you get back to Elm Road?" "Who—what . . ." The man gulped. "Lady, where did you come from?" Lady? And then he realized. The man was judging from his voice. "I'm not a lady, I'm a boy. I lost my way and I wanna get back to Elm Road." "Where—where are you?" "In your car. I sneaked in when you weren't looking." Larry had a feeling that the man wanted to turn around. But he couldn't turn and drive at the same time. And he didn't want to stop. He wanted to get out of the woods and end this conversation as soon as possible. "You couldn't have." The driver said in a shaky voice. Talk about stubbornness, thought Larry, this grownup had it all over Georgie. Larry's head floated back and then, carefully, through the open back window and into the car. Speaking close to the man's ear, from the right side this time, he said, "How do you think I got here then?" The man almost jumped through the windshield. And then Larry saw what he was staring at. The windshield was pretty dusty on the outside, it served as a mirror, and there was just enough light from the inside of the car for Larry to see his own image. Evidently the man could see him too. But had he seen Larry's head float in? Too late to worry about that. Larry said, "Let's not argue, mister. I wanna get back to Elm Road. How do I get there?" The man licked his lips. "Straight back along this road." "Any crossroads?" "Just one. Take the right—no, the left. I took the right coming here. You take the left to get back." "Sure about that, mister? I wouldn't wanna have to come back and ask you again." "I wouldn't fool you. I wouldn't fool anybody like you." "Thanks," said Larry politely, as his mother had taught him to. And he floated out of the window again. THIS time the man must surely have seen him, for the car swerved so hard it almost bumped into a tree. Then it straightened out again and picked up speed. Larry picked up speed, too. He had to get back to Elm Road and then find Georgie's body. It would be terrible if the searching parties found it first. As it happened, one of the members of a searching party did. That was what drew Larry's attention to it. As he flew over the treetops, he could hear the frantic barking of a small terrier, one of the dogs that had been taken along because there were only a few bloodhounds. There were no men around, so Larry flew down to investigate. The terrier was barking at Georgie's body, which lay on some dry leaves under a tree. It kept dashing at the body and then dashing away again, as if afraid. "There'll be some men here in a minute," muttered Larry. "I'll have to act fast. I wonder . . ." No use wondering, in order to know, you had to try. He let his head float down to Georgie's body. It wasn't a good fit, but it would do. Then he made the body stand up and start to run. Georgie was only a little kid, weak and kind of clumsy. It was a nuisance to have his body slipping and stumbling all over the place. But he managed to get it to a tree and began to climb up. The terrier followed him, wildly barking all the while, and began to run in circles around the tree. When he got high up, Larry wedged the body in between two branches and threw Georgie's arms tight around the tree trunk. Then his head flew off to find Georgie's head. He knew, now, exactly where to look. If Georgie ran true to form, he'd find him in the strawberry patch. He was right. Georgie was there, trying to eat the berries, and having a terrible time because he had no hands to pick them. "Georgie!" he called. "Quick, Georgie, come 'with me!" "I'm hungry," said Georgie. "Look, Georgie, I found your body. You can use your hands to pick the berries with. But you gotta come with me before somebody else finds it." The inducement worked. Georgie's head followed his, and together they floated to the tree where the body had climbed. Down below, the terrier's barking had finally attracted a man's attention, and lights were flashing. "Quick," said Larry, "get your head back on again. I'm going home." And, without waiting to see what would happen, he rose into the air as fast as he could and flew home. "That was pretty close," he said aloud, as he edged through the open window. FOR half of the next day, he was a hero. He was so brave, so smart. He hadn't cried at all—not much, anyway. And, to keep himself safe from wild animals, he had climbed a tree. Oh, yes, Georgie was quite a hero. "He gets the credit for everything, and I always get the blame," thought Larry. "But just wait. It can't last. Sooner or later . . ." It happened sooner—that very afternoon, in fact — when Mom gave Georgie a half dollar to go to the grocer's and buy some bread. And, as usual, the half dollar disappeared. Mom was pretty mad about it. "Losing things, always losin; things. If your head wasn't stuck, on, I'll bet you'd lose that too," she snapped at Georgie. She didn't know the half of it, Larry thought happily. Xhanph was the fully accredited ambassador from Gfun, and Earth's first visitor from outer space. History and the amenities called for a tremendous reception. But earth people are funny people ... UNWELCOMED VISITOR BY WILLIAM MORRISON ALL THE way over, all through the loneliness of the long trip, he had consoled himself with the thought of the reception he would get. How they would crowd around him, how they would gape and cheer! All the most prominent and most important Earthlings would rush to see him, to touch their own appendages to his tentacles, to receive his report of interplanetary good will. His arrival would certainly be the most celebrated occasion in all the history of Earth ... He was coming in for a landing, and it was no time for day-dreaming. He brought the ship down slowly, in the middle of a large square, as carefully as if he were settling down among his own people. He gave them a chance to get out from under him before making contact with the ground. When the ship finally rested firmly on the strange planet, he gave a sigh of relief, and for a few long seconds sat there motionless. And then he began to move toward the door. The increased gravity did not affect him as fully as he had thought it would. For the dense atmosphere, with its high oxygen content, he had of course been prepared. He injected another dose of respiratory enzyme into his bloodstream just to make sure, and then swung open the door. The inrush of air caused only a momentary: dizziness. Then he climbed over the side and stared about in surprise. No one was paying any attention to him. Their indifference was so enormous that it struck him like a blow. Individuals of both sexes—he could easily distinguish them by the difference in their clothing—were going about their own business as if he simply were not there. A small animal running about on all fours had its forepart to the ground. It trotted from one place to another, making a slight noise with an organ that he felt sure was used for the intake of oxygen. When it came to him, it sniffed slightly, without any especial interest, and then ran off to more important business. No other creature paid him even that much attention. Can it be, he asked himself incredulously, that they don't see me? Perhaps their organs of vision make use of different wave lengths. Perhaps to them I and the ship are not pink and gray respectively, but a perfect black which fails to register. I must speak to them, I must make myself known. They may be startled, but I must take the chance. He rolled over to an individual who towered over him a full spard, and said gravely, "Greetings! I, Xhanph, bring you greetings from the inhabitants of the planet, Gfun. I come with a message of friendship— There could be no doubt that the other heard him. And saw him. He looked straight at Xhanph, muttered something, probably about a pink monster, which Xanph could guess at but not really interpret, and moved on impatiently. Xhanph stared after him with an incredulity that grew by the moment. They didn't understand his language, that he realized. But surely they didn't have to understand in order to be interested. The very sight of his ship, a mere glimpse of him, the first visitor from interplanetary space, should have been enough to bring them flocking around. How could they possibly greet him with such disinterest, with such faces which even to a stranger seemed cold and chilling? When you have traveled as far as he had traveled, you don't give up easily. Another, a shorter individual, was coming toward him, and he began again, "Greetings! I, Xhanph—" This time the individual didn't even stop, but muttered something which must surely have been of the nature of an oath. And hurried on. Xhanph tried five more times before he gave up. If there had been the slightest indication of interest, he would have kept on. But there wasn't. The only feeling he could detect was one of impatience at being annoyed. And he saw that there was nothing else to do but go back to his ship. For a while he sat there, brooding. One possible solution struck him, although it didn't seem at all probable. These people were not representative of their kind. Perhaps this entire area he had taken for a city was nothing more than a retreat for the mentally disabled, for those who had found the strain of living too much and had sunk back into a kind of stupor. Perhaps elsewhere the people were more normal. At the thought, he brightened for a moment. Yes, that must be it. Convincing himself against his own better judgment, he lifted the ship into the air again and set it down a few dozen grolls away. But there was no difference. Here, too, the fates looked at him blankly, and people hurried away impatiently when he tried to stop them. He knew now that it was useless to pick up the ship still another time and set it down elsewhere. If there was some rational explanation for such irrational behavior, it could be found here just as well as anywhere else. And explanation there must be. But he would have to look for it. It would not come to him if he simply sat there in the ship and waited for it. He got out and locked the ship so that in case some one finally did show curiosity, no harm would come to it. Then he began to roll around the city. EVERYWHERE he met the same indifference as at first. Even the children stared at him without curiosity, and went on with their games. He stopped to watch—and to listen. They bounced balls, and as they bounced, they recited words. When something interrupted the even tenor of the game and they had to begin again, they went back to the start of the recitation. Surely, they were counting. Listening carefully, he learned the fundamentals of their system of numerals. At the same time, for the sake of permanence, he made pictorial and auditory records. Every now and then the game would be interrupted by a quarrel. And a childish quarrel, of course, was sure to be full of recriminations. You did this, I did that; He learned the names of the objects with which they played, he learned the words for first and second persons in their different forms. He learned the word for the maternal parent, who seemed to stand in the closest relation to the young ones. By evening he had acquired a fairly good child's grasp of the language. He rolled back in the direction of the ship. When he came to the place where it should be, he had a sudden feeling of panic. The ship was gone. They must have dragged it away. Their whole pretense of indifference must have been a trick, he thought excitedly. They had waited until they could tamper with it without his interference, in order to learn its secrets. What had they done with it? Perhaps they had harmed it, possibly they had ruined the drive. How could he ever get off this accursed planet, how would he ever get back to Gfun? He rolled hastily over to the nearest man and tried to put his newfound vocabulary to use. "'Where—where—" He realized suddenly that he didn't know the word for ship. "Where galenfain?" The man looked at him as if he were crazy, and walked on. Xhanph did some swearing on his own account. He began to roll madly around the square, becoming more desperate from moment to moment. Finally, just when he thought he would explode from rage and frustration, he found the ship again. It had been dragged to a neighboring street and left on a vacant lot, surrounded by rusty cans, broken bottles, and various other forms of garbage and rubbish indigenous to this section of the planet. Relief mingled with a feeling of outrage. Xhanph swore again. The indignity of it was enough to start an interplanetary war. If they ever heard of it back on Gfun, they would want to blast this stupid and insulting planet out of existence. He hastened into the ship, and found to his joy that there had been no damage. There was nothing to prevent him from taking off again and getting back to Gfun. But the mystery of his reception still intrigued him. He could not leave without solving it. He rolled out of the ship again and stood there watching it. Evidently they had regarded this miracle of engineering as nothing more than so much rubbish. They would probably leave it alone now. He could let it remain here, and in the meantime carry on his investigating as before. Things would go more rapidly now that he understood some of the elements of human speech. All he had to do was keep his hearing appendages open and interpret the key words as he heard them. It shouldn't take him long. One of the reasons he had been selected to make the trip was that he had a gift for languages, and a day or two more should suffice to establish communications. He left the ship again, and began to roll around the city. He listened to traffic policemen directing the flow of helicopters, he stood by unobtrusively while boy talked with girl—these conversations turned out to be very limited in scope, as well as uninstructive in syntax—and he even managed to get into a place of amusement where three dimensional images created in him a sense of nostalgia. From his slight knowledge of the language, he could perceive that the dialogue was so stale that he himself could have supplied it from stories written long ago on his native planet. After a lapse of many hours, the majority of the people disappeared from the streets, and he decided it was time to return to his ship and suspend animation. In the morning he set out again. By the end of that day he felt he could understand the spoken language well enough. What next? To learn the language in written form might take too long, and besides, to solve his mystery he would have to waste time in digging up the recorded forms that contained the necessary information. No, he would have to find some one to talk to, some one who would have the necessary information at his tentacle-tips, or as they called the appendages here, finger-tips. He began to approach various people again, undiscouraged by their cold and impolite replies. Finally he found the informant he had been seeking, an old, white-haired individual who was walking slowly, with the aid of a cane, along one of the wider and quieter streets. The man looked at him with calm lack of interest as he approached. Xhanph came to a stop, and said, "Greetings! I, Xhanph, bring you greetings from the inhabitants of the planet, Gfun. I come with a message of friendship." "Very glad to make your acquaintance, sir," said the old man politely, but still without genuine interest. At last some one who had answered! Xhanph started his portable recording machine going. "I wish for information. Perhaps you can give it to me." "Ah, my young fellow, I have seen a great deal and know a great deal. But it isn't very often that you young ones want to find out what we old folks know." "Perhaps I have not made myself clear. I am an inhabitant of the planet, Gfun." "Yes, indeed. Do you intend to stay here long?" "I have come with a message of friendship. But I have found no one to receive it." "Mmm. That's unfortunate," the old man said. "People are very impatient nowadays. Time is money, they say. Can't spare the money to stop and talk. Couldn't spare it myself, not so long ago. I'm retired now, though. Used to run a stereo store, up around Mudlark Street. Biggest store in the city. Everybody used to buy from me. Jefferson J. Gardner's my name. You may have heard of me on—where did you say you come from?" "Gfun. However, I wish to make clear—" "Never sold any stereos to any one on Gfun. Probably don't get good reception up there. Sold 'em to everybody else, though. I'm well known here, Mr.—" "Xhanph. But before you go further—" "Got into the stereo game when they first came out. Went like hot-cakes in those days. Although I don't suppose you know what a hotcake is. Quality didn't count. Only thing that counted was size of screen and strength of the three-dimensional effect. Mr. Gloopher —he was Mayor then—Robert F. Gloopher—had a daughter who went in for acting . . ." Not for the first time, Xhanph cursed this damnable planet. The only man he had found willing to talk was senile and his conversation rambled wildly like a feather in a strong and particularly erratic whirlwind. Still, he told himself with a touch of philosophy, I have wasted so much time, I can afford to waste a little more. Sooner or later this individual will tell me what I want to know. Half an hour later, however, when Jefferson J. Gardner began to repeat himself, Xpanph realized that he couldn't just wait for the old man to talk himself out. Different tactics were needed. He interrupted rudely. "Why don't people pay any attention to me?" "Eh? What's that you say?" "I come from the planet, Gfun. I thought that as an interplanetary visitor I would be received with tremendous enthusiasm. Instead I find myself disregarded." "I recollect that back in the old days—" "Never mind that. Why don't people pay any attention to me?" "Why should they?" "That is no answer!" "But it is, sir," said the old gentleman with dignity. "They don't find you out of the ordinary. Why pay attention to you?" "You mean that you are accustomed to visitors from space?" "No, sir, I mean nothing of the kind. What I do mean is that we are by now thoroughly accustomed to the idea of you. I remember—" "Never mind what you remember!" "When I was a child, stories about visitors from Mars or Venus were already trite and stereotyped. What could a visitor do? What might a visitor look like? All the possible answers had already been given, and we were familiar with every one of them. We imagined visitors with tentacles and without, with a thousand legs and no legs, with five heads and seven feet, and eighteen stomachs. We imagined visitors who were plants, or electrical impulses, or viruses, or energy-creatures. They had the power to read minds, to move objects telekinetically and to travel through impossible dimensions. Their space ships were of all kinds, and they could race along with many times the speed of light or crawl with the speed of molasses. I do not know, sir, in which category you fall—whether you are animal, vegetable, mineral, or electrical—but I know that there is nothing new about you." "But you are familiar merely with the ideas. I am a real visitor!" "Young man, I am a hundred and ten years old, and the idea of you was already ancient when I was eight. I remember reading about you in a comic book. You are not the first visitor who has pretended to be real. There were hundreds before you. I have seen press agent stunts by the dozen, and advertising pictures by the hundreds about Mars, about Venus, about the Moon, about visitors from interstellar space. Your pretended colleagues have walked the streets of innumerable cities, until now we are weary of the entire tribe of you. And you yourself, sir, if you will pardon the expression, you are an anticlimax." "Your race must be insane," protested Xhanph. "For all you know I may come with great gifts which I wish to confer upon you." "We have been fooled before. And in view of the fact, as I have reminded you, that time is money, we do not wish to bankrupt ourselves by investigating." "But suppose I'm here to harm you!" "If your race is capable of it, we can hardly stop you, so it is no use trying. If incapable, you are wasting your efforts." "This is insanity, genuine racial insanity!" "You repeat yourself. The fact is, we have become blase," said the old man. "Thanks to the efforts of our science fiction writers, we have experienced in imagination all there is to experience in interplanetary contact, and the genuine article can be only a disappointment. I am reminded of an incident that occurred when Gerald Crombie, who was City Councilman at the time, ordered a twenty-five inch stereo set . . ." XHANPH rolled away. He had his answer now, and he couldn't stand listening any longer to the old man's babbling. He rolled aimlessly, up one street and down another. And he thought of how they would receive his answer when he went back to Gfun. Was it him or the planet that they would consider mad? Almost certainly, they wouldn't believe him. He could imagine the exchange of wondering glances, the first delicate hints that the long trip had deranged him, the not so delicate hints later on when he persisted in sticking to his story. He remembered the high hopes with which he had departed, the messages with which he had been entrusted by the Chief of Planetary Affairs, the Head of the Scientific Bureau, the Director of Economic Affairs, and countless others. And he could imagine the reception he would find when he reported that he had been unable to deliver a single message. How long he rolled in this aimless fashion he did not know. After a time he seemed to come to his senses. It was no use trying to run away from reality, as he was doing. He had to go back to the ship and return to Gfun. Let them believe him or not, his report would tell the truth. And the pictorial and auditory records would confirm his story. What a planet, he thought again. Of all its hundreds of millions, its billions of inhabitants, not one had the curiosity, the ordinary intellectual decency, to be interested in him. Not one had the imagination, the awareness— "Pardon me," said a shrill voice. "Excuse me for reading thoughts, but I could not help overhearing—I am a visitor here myself." He swung around. The figure before him was strange, but an aura of friendliness came from it and he knew there was nothing to fear. Nothing to fear—and much to be thankful for. With a heartfelt double sigh, while disinterested passersby spared them not even a glance, pink tentacles and green streamers clasped in a gesture of friendship that spanned the millions of miles of interplanetary space. DEAD MAN'S PLANET By WILLIAM MORRISON Illustrated by EMSH When a driven man arrives at a cemetery world, what else can it be but journey's end—and the start of a new one? OUTSIDE the ship, it was the sun that blazed angrily. Inside, it was Sam Wilson's temper. "Study your lessons," he snarled, with a savageness that surprised himself, "or I'll never let you set foot on this planet at all." "Okay, Pop," said Mark, a little white around the nostrils. He looked old for so young a kid. "I didn't mean anything wrong." "I don't care what you meant. You do as you're told." In the quiet that followed, broken only by the hum of the arithmetic-tape, Sam wondered at himself. As kids went, Mark had never been a nuisance. Certainly Rhoda had never had any trouble with him. But Rhoda had been altogether different. Sam was tough and he had always got a sense of satisfaction out of knowing that he was hard-boiled. Or at least that was once true. Rhoda had been sweet, gentle . . . He aroused himself from thoughts of her by calling, "Mark!" "Yes, Pop?" His voice had been harsher than he had intended. Over the past few weeks he seemed gradually to have been losing control of it. Now, although he was going to do his son a favor, he sounded like a slavemaster threatening a beating. "You can shut off your arithmetic lesson. We're going out." "But didn't you want me—" "I changed my mind." Mark seemed more troubled than pleased, as if a father who changed his mind so readily was a man to be wary of. I'm on edge all the time, thought Sam, and I'm getting him that way, too. I'll have to regain control of myself. HE had long ago made all the necessary tests for such possible dangers as lack of oxygen and the presence of infectious organisms. On all counts, the planet had passed muster. The sun, whiter than Sol, was almost hot enough to make him forget the chill he carried deep inside him. Almost, but not quite, especially as the air, though breathable, was thin and deficient in nitrogen. The countryside was bleak, inspiring in him the thought that there are two kinds of desolation; the one that precedes the coming of Man, and the one which he knows only too well how to create wherever he goes. The desolation here was non-human. "It—it's like a cemetery, ain't it, Pop?" Sam looked at his son sharply. Kids of ten were not supposed to know much about cemeteries. Nor, for that matter, were kids of six, Mark's age when the funeral had taken place. Sam hadn't let him attend, but evidently the incident had made a deeper impression on his mind than Sam had realized. He would always remember a cemetery as the place where his mother lived. Perhaps he missed Rhoda almost as much as his father did. "It's different from a cemetery," said Sam. "There's nobody buried here. Looks like we're the first human beings ever to set foot on this place." "Do you think we'll find animals to catch, Pop?" "I don't see signs of any animals." That was part of Sam's private fiction, that he was looking for strange animals to be sold to zoos or circuses. Actually he was seeking less to find anything new than to lose something he carried with him, and succeeding in neither attempt. Mark shivered in the sun. "It's kind of lonely," he said. "More lonely than the ship?" "It's different. It's bigger, so it's more lonely." I'm not so sure, argued Sam mentally. In the ship, we have all of space around us, and nothing's bigger than that. Still, your opinion has to be respected. You're almost as great an expert on the various kinds of loneliness as I am. The difference is that you're loneliest when you're away from people. I'm loneliest in a crowd. That's why I don't mind this planet so much. He walked ahead, Mark following almost reluctantly. The ground was rocky and the shrub-like vegetation sparse and stunted, ranging in color from greenish gray to brown. It seemed hardly capable of supporting a large animal population. If there were any animals here at all, they were probably too small to be impressive, and would be of little interest to exhibitors. They walked in silence for a few moments, and then Sam asked, "Want to go on?" "I want to finish my studying." That was something new. "Okay," said Sam, and turned back. THEY were approaching the ship when the sound of a pebble falling came to Sam's ears. Automatically, his hand reached for his gun, and he swung around to face what might be danger. As he did so, something snarled and fled. He could see no sign of motion, but he could hear the scattering of other pebbles along a gully as the creature retreated. "Looks like we're not alone here, after all," he said. "Wonder what that was." "It couldn't have been very big," said Mark. "Big animals don't run away." "Not usually, unless they're smart, or they've met people before. I'll have to set traps." "Do you think maybe if you caught him you could sell him to a circus, Pop?" "I'll have to see what he's like, first," said Sam. He looked around. "If there's one animal, there are likely to be others. It's strange that I didn't detect any sign of them." He put his arm absently over Mark's shoulder. He didn't notice the expression on the kid's face at this unexpected gesture. When they were inside the ship again, Mark said, "Guess I'd better get back to my arithmetic." "In a minute," said Sam. "I want to talk to you first." He dropped wearily into a seat, although he had done nothing that should have tired him out. His son looked at him expectantly. "Mark, do you like traveling around with me?" "Sure, Pop, I like to be with you." "Not seeing anybody else? No other kids, no people of any kind? Just being with me, learning your lessons from tapes, and having your test papers corrected automatically? You don't get tired of it?" Mark hesitated despite himself. Then he said loyally, "I'd rather be with you than anybody else. When Mom—when Mom died—I didn't want to see anybody." "I know how you felt. But that was four years ago. You can't grow up alone. Now what you need to do is meet people, learn how they talk and think and feel. You can't learn those things from tapes, and you can't learn them from me." Mark said stubbornly, "I like to be with you." "I'm not much of a person to be with. Don't think I don't know it. I'm mean and surly, and my temper's getting worse by the day. I can't associate with people any more. But you can. I was thinking maybe I'd leave you—" "No!" cried Mark. "Not in an orphanage or anything like that. But I have some friends whose kids are growing up—" "No. I won't go. If you send me, I'll run away. I want to be with you." "Okay," said Sam. "That's that." But it wasn't, and he knew it. Even as he went about preparing his traps, he knew it. AS it turned out, the only animals he caught in his traps were small ones which tore themselves in two and then scampered off, each half running in a different direction. For the animal which had made those noises, no traps were necessary. Later on he heard a noise outside again, and he went out cautiously, gun in hand. The animal backed away, but he saw it, then he heard it bark. So did Mark, who had followed him. Mark's eyes almost popped. It was four years since he had heard the sound, but he knew at once what it was. "Gosh! A dog! How do you s'pose he got here?" "I don't know," said Sam. "Your guess is as good as mine." "But if we're the first human beings to land here—it ain't possible !" "I know that. But there he is." At the sound of their voices, the dog broke into a series of furious barks, backing away as it did so. "What kind is he, Pop?" "He looks like a mongrel to me. A bad tempered medium-sized mongrel with an ugly look about him. Maybe I ought to shoot him and get it over with." "Shoot him? Don't do that! I want him as a pet." "He looks too wild to make much of a pet." The dog gave one last bark of defiance, turned, and fled in the same general direction, Sam noticed, as he had run last time. "Maybe dogs do grow on other planets, Pop." "Only if men have brought them there." "Then that means there was a ship here?" "At some time or other there was a ship. I don't think it was smashed up, or I'd have seen wreckage when I cruised around before landing. That dog was either left here by mistake, or deliberately marooned." "Maybe—maybe he's with somebody who's still here." "Not likely," said Sam thoughtfully. "He wanders around too freely, and he seems unused to the presence of human beings. Besides, no men would be likely to live here long without shelter. And I've seen no sign of any house or hut." "Could he belong to a being that wasn't human?" "No," replied Sam with certainty: "Only human beings have been able to domesticate dogs. If a dog is here, a human being was once here. That's definite." "He would make a good pet," said Mark longingly. "Not that one. Maybe I should have got you a dog long ago. It might have been just the kind of companionship you needed. But you can't make a pet of this animal. He's been away from people too long, and he's developed some mean habits." And he added mentally, "Like me." "I could train him," said Mark. "He wouldn't be any trouble at all, Pop. I'd train him and feed him, and he'd be just like one of us. And—and like you say, Pop, it wouldn't be so lonely for me." Kids don't give up easily, thought Sam. All the same, he had an idea that with this dog all the persistence in the world would be useless. He shrugged, and said simply, "We'll see." And then they went into the ship to eat. ALL through the meal he could tell that Mark was thinking about the dog. The boy's thoughts seemed to affect his appetite. For the first time, he left some of his proteinex on the plate. "I'm not very hungry today," he said apologetically. "Maybe—" He looked inquiringly at his father. "Go ahead and finish it," said Sam. "We've got plenty of food. I'll fix up something else for the dog." "But I want to feed him myself, Pop. I want him to get used to me feeding him." "I'll give you your chance later." Afterwards, Sam thriftily opened an old can of a less expensive variety of proteinex and put half of it on a platter, which Mark carried outside the ship. He moved off about a hundred yards in the direction the dog had taken, and set the platter down on a rock. "The wind is blowing the wrong way," said Sam. "Let's wait a while." IN ten minutes the wind shifted, and if the dog was near, Sam felt certain that he had picked up both their scent and that of the food. That his feeling was correct was shown by the sudden appearance of the animal, who barked again, but this time not so fiercely. And he stopped barking to sniff hungrily, at the same time keeping his distance. "Here, mutt," called Mark. "I'm afraid he won't come any closer while we're around," said Sam. "If you want him to have that food, you'd better go away from it." Mark reluctantly backed away with his father. The dog approached the food, finally rushing down upon it as if he feared it would escape, and gobbled it. In the days that followed, they continued to feed him, and the animal became relatively tame. He stopped barking at them, and at times let Mark come within a few feet of him. But he never allowed Mark to come close enough to touch him, and he was especially wary of Sam. The latter could see, however, that there was nothing around the smooth furred neck. The collar, if it had ever existed, had evidently been worn away. "So we can't find out what his name is," said Mark in disappointment. "Here Prince, here Spot, here Rover—" The animal answered to none of the traditional dog names, nor to several of the newer ones that Mark recalled. After the dog had been with them for a half hour or so he usually trotted off in the direction of what they had come to consider his lair. "He doesn't seem to be getting tame enough for a pet," said Sam. "That's one idea I'm afraid you'll have to give up." "All he needs is a little more time," said Mark. "He's getting used to me." Then a sudden fear struck him, and he added, "You're not going to leave here yet, are you, Pop? I thought you wanted to catch some big animals." "There aren't any other big animals," replied Sam. "Just those small ones who came apart in the traps, and they're not worth catching. But I'll stay. This place is as good as any other. I won't leave it yet." IN fact, the stay on the planet, bleak as the place was, seemed to be less unpleasant than cruising aimlessly through space. Mark had been starved for companionship of someone besides his father, and in a way, without making too many demands, the dog was a companion. Wondering about the beast and trying to tame him gave them something with which to occupy their minds. It had been several days, realized Sam, since he had last snapped at Mark. It had become quite certain now that there was no other human being around. The dog's eagerness for the food showed that no one else had taken care of him for a long time. Evidently he had been forced to feed himself on the small and elusive native animals which he could run down. One of the things that puzzled Sam was the dog's obvious anxiety to leave the neighborhood of the ship after a short period and return to his lair. And one day, driven by curiosity, Sam followed him, with Mark coming along, too. The dog had become sufficiently accustomed to them by now not to resent their presence, and it was easy to keep him in sight. He led the way for at least two miles, over rocky ground and past a small stream. Quite unexpectedly he stopped and began to whine and sniff the ground. As Sam and Mark approached, he turned on them, barking furiously. The man and boy exchanged glances. "He's acting just like he did in the beginning," said Mark. "There's something in the ground," said Sam. "I'm going to find out what it is." And he drew his gun. "You're not going to kill him, Pop!" "I'll just put him to sleep. An anaesthetic pellet of the kind I use for trapping ought to do the trick." But one pellet turned out to be not enough. It required the bursting of three pellets before the animal finally trembled, came to a halt, and with eyes glazed, fell over on the ground. When they approached closer, Sam caught sight of half a dozen stones, roughly piled together. He said, "Better get back, Mark. This may not be pleasant." "You think—you think somebody's buried here?" "Very likely. I'm going to see." USING a flat rock with a sharp edge as an improvised spade, he began to dig. The ground was hard, and the rock was not the best of tools. It took him half an hour to reach the first bone, and another half-hour to uncover the rest. Mark had come up behind him and was watching with no sign of revulsion. He said, "I—I was afraid there might be a body, Pop." "So was I. It looks as if the man died so long ago that everything else has rotted away, except for a few metal clasps. No other sign of shoes or clothes. And no indication of how this happened." "You think he was the dog's master?" "Evidently." They both stared at the sleeping animal. Then Sam shrugged, and began to fill the shallow grave again. Mark helped him push in the dirt and stamp it down into place. Finally they moved the stones back. They were about to leave when Mark cried out, "Look at that rock!" Staring where his son pointed, Sam saw a gray column about four feet high, with four smooth lateral sides. Rectangular prisms of this size were rare in nature. This was obviously the work of human hands, and of a blasting rod as well, to judge by the sides, which showed evidence of having been fused before weathering had cut into them. At first he had thought the column was a gravestone. But there was no inscription upon it. There was nothing but a thin deep groove that ran horizontally around the four sides, several inches from the top. "What does it mean, Pop?" "Let's find out. It's obviously been put here as some sort of memorial. As for this groove—" He put his hands on the top of the stone and lifted. As he had half expected, it separated at the horizontal groove. The top of the stone was the lid of a box. Inside lay a plastic container. "Some kind of plastic we don't make any more," muttered Sam. "Aren't you going to open it?" asked Mark eagerly. "Maybe it tells about the grave and the dog's name." The plastic came open at a slight tug. Inside were several strong sheets of paper. Sam stared at them and said, "It's writing, sure enough. But in some language I don't understand." "We can put it in our mechanical translator," said Mark. "That can tell us what it means." "That's what we'll do." "Aren't we going to take the dog with us, Pop?" "No, we'll leave him here. He'll come to in a little while." WALKING back to their ship, Mark continued to show an excitement that was unusual for him. "You know what?" he said. "I'll bet we're going to learn what the dog's name is." "I doubt if whoever wrote this thing would bother about a trifle like that." "But that's important. You'll see, Pop, you'll see!" At the ship, Sam inserted the sheets into the reader section of his translator and started the motor. The selector swung into action. "Before it can translate, it has to decide what language this is," he explained. "Will that take long?" "A few minutes if we're lucky, a couple of hours if we're not. After that, I think the translation itself shouldn't take more than a few minutes. While we're waiting, we might as well eat." "I'm not hungry," said Mark. "You'd better eat anyway." "Just a little bit, maybe. You know what I think, Pop? When I call the dog by his name, he'll know I'm his friend and he'll come to me. Then he'll really be my pet." "Don't count too much on it," said Sam. And thought once more how lonely his son must be, to center so much hope in a half-wild beast. A light glowed suddenly in the translator. The selector had found the proper language. Now it began to translate. Twenty minutes later, its work had been completed. As Sam silently began to read, Mark bumped against him, knocking the translation from his hand. Sam's first reaction was anger at the boy's clumsiness. Then he became aware of the hope and the fear that lay behind Mark's excitement, and bit back the angry words which had almost reached his lips. "Easy, Mark, easy," he said. He picked up the translation again and sat down. "You can read it over my shoulder, if you want to." "I just want to find out the dog's name." "The important thing is his master's name. Julian Hagstrom, it says. And he was on a spaceship with his brother, Raoul." Mark's eyes had skipped ahead. "Look, Pop, here's the dog's name—Arkem! I never heard of a dog having a name like that! What does it mean?" "I wouldn't know," muttered Sam absently, still reading. But Mark wasn't actually interested in his answer. He ran outside. "Arkem !" he called. "Arkem!" There was nothing he could interpret as an answer. After a moment or two he came into the ship again, his face betraying his disappointment. "I guess he doesn't hear me. He's too far away." Sam nodded. He had put the translation down and was staring straight ahead of him, as if looking through the ship's side. "Is anything the matter, Pop?" "What? Oh, no, nothing's the matter. I was just thinking about what I read here." "They had an accident, didn't they? How did it happen?" "IT happened because their ship wasn't as good as ours. Julian Hagstrom, the man who was killed, was buried here by his brother. Raoul put this record in the stone to mark his grave. I think he also engraved something on the stone itself. But that's been worn away." "It must have been a long time ago. Maybe years." "Yes, it was years ago. After he buried Julian, Raoul tried to make repairs, and headed in a direction where he hoped he'd find a civilized planet. He never made it." "How can you know that? He wrote the paper before he started out." "If he had made it, we'd have heard of him. We'd certainly have heard of him." Sam's face was bleak. "And Rhoda—your mother—would still be alive." Mark looked puzzled, and stared at the translation once more. "It says here he tried to re-reverse the aging process. What does that mean? And what's immortality, Pop?" "Something he and his brother were looking for. Something to keep people from ever dying. They had a ship full of dogs and other animals. All died in their experiments—all but Arkem. They had high hopes of Arkem. He lived through a number of different treatments and became quite a pet of Julian's. Then came the crash. Their method wasn't proof against accidental death, and at any rate they hadn't applied it yet to themselves. "After Raoul buried his brother, the dog was miserable, and howled so much that Raoul decided to leave him behind. He was helped to reach this decision by the fact that the ship had lost much of its air in the accident, and he knew that the air-purifying mechanism wasn't working too well. He figured he'd have a better chance of surviving if he stayed in the ship alone. But it didn't do him any good. He was lost in space, or we'd certainly have heard of him." From outside there came the sound of a low growl. "It's Arkem!" cried Mark. "Now you'll see. Wait till he hears me call his name." He ran out, and Sam followed slowly. "Don't expect too much, Mark," he said, almost with pity. Mark didn't hear him. "Arkem!" he called. "Arkem! Arkern!" The dog was watchful, keeping his distance and giving no sign of recognition. Sam put his arm around his son's shoulder. "Arkem, Arkem! Here, Arkem!" The dog snarled. THERE were tears in the boy's eyes. "He doesn't know his own name! He doesn't even know his own name! Arkem!" "It's no use, Mark, he's forgotten he ever had a name. I'm afraid you'd better give up the idea of having him as a pet." "But you can't forget your own name!" "You can in eight hundred years. Yes, Mark, that's when all this happened, eight hundred years ago. That's why the language had to be translated. Arkem is immortal. And during his long life he's forgotten not only his name, but the master for whose sake he was marooned here. If Julian Hagstrom were, by some miracle, to come back to life, I'm sure the dog wouldn't remember him. All he has is a vague but strong tie to that heap of stones. He no longer knows why he's protecting it. He's been away from live human beings so long that his brain is little more than a bundle of reflexes and instincts." "I'll train him," said Mark. "Sometimes you forget a thing at first, but it comes back to you later. He'll remember his name—here, Arkem" "It's no use," said Sam. "For eight hundred years he's been tied to that heap of stones. He'll never remember anything except that fact. I'll get you another dog for a pet." "You mean we're going back to Mars or Earth?" "Some place like that. Some place where there are people. Being alone in space is no good for you." "Oh, no, Pop, you can't get rid of me like that." ' "I'm not trying to get rid of you," said Sam. "Being alone in space is no good for me either. I'm going with you." "Gee, are you sure? You won't change your mind?" The delighted but uncertain look on his son's face shook Sam. He said carefully, "I won't change my mind. I've decided that it's possible to have too much of a good thing. If grief is a good thing." Suddenly, for no reason that they could detect, the dog barked at them and backed away, the fur rising in an angry ridge along his back. "Couldn't we take him along anyway?" asked Mark. "I don't like to think of him all alone here, year after year." "He'll be miserable here, but he'd be more miserable away from his heap of dirt and stones. Perhaps—" Mark didn't see as Sam pulled his gun, then let it slip back into place. "No. That's none of my business. Maybe he'll be fortunate and have an accident." "What did you say, Pop?" "Nothing much. Come along, Mark. We're heading for civilization." An hour later, the ship rose into the air. Through the blasting of the rockets, Sam thought—imagined, he decided, was a better word—that he heard the long doleful whine of a creature whose mindless grief was doomed to last for all eternity. —WILLIAM MORRISON Picture Bride As pretty as a picture? Yes, because that was all she was ...or would become some day? By WILLIAM MORRISON Illustrated by EMSH MY brother, Perry, always was a bit cracked. As a kid, he almost blew up our house doing experiments. When he was eighteen, he wrote poetry, but fortunately that didn't last long and he went back to science. Now, when he showed me this picture, I figured he'd had a relapse of some kind. "This is the girl I'm in love with," he said. She wasn't bad. Not bad at all, even if her clothes were crazy. She wasn't my type—too brainy-looking — although I could see how some guys would go for her. "I thought you liked blondes." "I wouldn't give you two cents for all the blondes in Hollywood," he answered. "This is the only girl for me." "You sound as if you've got bad," I said. "You going to marry her?" His face dropped about a mile "I can't." "You mean she's married already?" I was surprised. This wasn't like Perry at all. He sort of hesitated, as if he was afraid of saying too much "No, she isn't married. I asked her about that. But I can't marry her because — well, I've never met her. All I've seen of her is this picture and a few more. She doesn't live here." "You mean she's in Europe?" I've heard of these love affairs by mail, and they never made much sense to me. I said to Perry, "Why can't she come to this country?" "Oh, there are a lot of things in the way." It sounded worse and worse. I said, "Look, Perry, this smells like a racket to me. It's the kind of thing a couple of shrewd operators cook up to take some hick for a ride. I'm surprised at you falling for it. How do you know there really is a dame like that in Europe? Anybody can send pictures —" "You've got it all wrong," he said. "I've spoken to her." "By phone? How do you know who's on the other end? You hear a dame's voice you never heard before. What makes you think it's hers?" AGAIN he didn't seem to want to talk, as if he had some secret to hide. But I guess he felt like getting things off his chest, too, or he wouldn't have opened up in the first place. And he had already told me enough so that if he didn't tell me more he'd sound like a dope. So after hesitating even longer than before, he said, "Let's get this straight, George. This is no racket. I've seen and talked to her at the same time. And the things she talked about, no con man would know." "You've seen and talked to her at the same time? You mean by TV? I don't believe it. They can't send TV to Europe." "I didn't say it was TV. And I didn't say she lived in Europe." "That's exactly what you did say. Or maybe you meant she lived on Mars?" "No. She's an American." "This makes less and less sense to me. Where did you meet her?" He turned red, and squirmed all over the place. Finally he said, "Right here in my own laboratory." "In your own laboratory! But you said you never met her in the flesh!" "I didn't. Not really by TV either. The fact is — she isn't born yet." I backed away from him. When he was a kid and blew up our kitchen, I didn't like it. When he wrote poetry, I was kind of ashamed and didn't want my pals to know he was my brother. Now, I was really scared. Everything he had been saying in the last ten minutes began to make sense, but a screwy kind of sense. He saw how I felt. "Don't worry, George, I haven't gone crazy. Her time is 2973, more than a thousand years from now. The only way I've seen and talked to her is on a time-contact machine." "Come again?" "A kind of time machine. It can't send material objects back and forth across time, as far as I know, but it can send certain waves, especially the kind we use to transmit signals. That's how she and I could talk to each other and see each other." "Perry, I think you ought to see a good doctor." "It's a remarkable device," he said, paying no attention to how I was trying to help him. "She's the one who first constructed it and contacted me. It's based on an extension of Einstein's equations —" "You think you can explain so much," I said. "Okay, then, explain this. This dame isn't going to be born for a thousand years. And yet you tell me you're in love with her. What's the difference between you and somebody that's nuts?" I asked, as if anybody knew the answer. HE certainly didn't. In fact, he went ahead and proved to me that they were the same thing. Because for the next couple of weeks, the only thing he'd talk about, outside of equations I couldn't understand, was this dame. How smart she was, and how beautiful she was, and how wonderful she was in every way that a dame can be wonderful, and how she loved him. For a time he had me convinced that she actually existed. "Compared with you," I said, "Romeo had a mild case." "There are some quantities so great that you can't measure them," he said. "That will give you some idea of our love for each other." There it went, the old poetry, cropping out in him just like before. And all the time I'd been thinking it was like measles, something that you get once and it builds up your resistance so you don't get it again, at least not bad. It just goes to show how wrong I could be. "What preacher are you going to get to marry you?" I asked. "A guy born five hundred years from now?" "I don't think that's funny," he said. "You're telling me. Look, Perry, you're smart enough to know what I'm thinking —" "You still think I'm crazy." "I got an open mind on the subject. Now, if you won't see a doctor — then how about letting me take a look at this dame, so I can convince myself?" "No," he said. "I've considered doing that, and decided against it. Her voice and image come through for only about five minutes a day, sometimes less. And those minutes are very precious to us. We don't want any one else present, any one at all." "Not even to convince me she actually exists?" "You wouldn't be convinced anyway," he said very shrewdly. "No matter what I showed you, you'd still find a reason to call it a fraud." He was right at that. It would take a lot of convincing to make me believe that a babe who wasn't going to get born for a thousand years was in love with him. By this time, though, I was sure of one thing — there was something screwy going on in that laboratory of his. For five minutes a day he was watching some dame's picture, listening to her voice. If I had an idea what she was like, I might figure out where to go from there. I BEGAN keeping an eye on I Perry, dropping in at the laboratory to pay him visits. There was what looked like a ten-inch TV tube in one corner of his place, not housed in a cabinet, but lying on the table among dozens of other tubes and rheostats and meters and other things didn't know about. Along the wall that led from this corner was a lot of stuff which Perry said was high voltage, and warned me not to touch. I kept away. I wasn't trying to figure out how to get myself killed. All I wanted to know was when he saw this girl. Finally I managed to pin the time down to between three and four in the afternoon. For five minutes every day, during that hour, he locked the door and didn't answer phone calls. I figured that if I dropped in then I might get a glimpse of her. And that's what I did. At first, when I knocked on the door, there was no answer. In a minute, though, I heard Perry's voice, but he wasn't talking to me. He was saying, "Darling," and he sounded kind of sick, which I figured was due to love. Come to think of it, he might have been scared a little. I heard him say, "Don't be afraid," and it was quiet for about fifteen seconds. Then I heard a terrific crash, like lightning striking. The door shook, and I smelled something sharp, and the first thing I wanted to do was get out of that place. But I couldn't leave my brother in there. I put my shoulder to the door and had no trouble at all. The explosion, or whatever it was, must have weakened the hinges. As the door crashed in, I looked for Perry. There was no sign of him. But I could see his shoes, on the floor in front of that TV tube, where he must have been standing. No feet in them, though, just his socks. All the high-voltage stuff was smoking. The TV screen was all lit up, and on it I could see a girl's face, the same girl whose picture Perry had shown me. She was wearing one of those funny costumes, and she looked scared. It was a clear picture, and I could even see the way she gulped. Then she broke out into a happy smile and, for about half a second, before the second explosion, I could see Perry on the screen. After that second explosion — even though it wasn't near as big as the first — that TV set was nothing but a mess of twisted junk, and there was no screen left to see anything on. Perry liked to have everything just so, and he'd never think of going anyplace without his tie being knotted just right, and his socks matching, and so on. And here he'd traveled a thousand years into the future in bare feet. I felt kind of embarrassed for him. Anyway, they were engaged, and now they must be married, so I guess she had slippers waiting for him. I'm just sorry I missed the wedding. —WILLIAM MORRISON SPOKEN FOR He was lost — anyone could see that — but she had no idea how entirely lost he was nor why! By WILLIAM MORRISON Illustrated by EMSH HALF of Jupiter's great disk and most of the other moons were below the horizon when the man step­ped out of the plane and changed her life. As far as Carol Marsh was concerned, he was ordinary enough in appearance. And she wasn't ordinarily attracted to or­dinary men. He was slightly over medium height, his features were not quite regular, and he had a deep tan over what had started out as a sunburn, so that she decided he had misjudged the strength of the sun on some planet with a thin atmosphere. She frowned as she watched him look around. She was an­noyed by the fact that it took him almost a minute to get his bearings and realize that she was first, a human being and second, a girl well worth a man's atten­tion. Even the troubled expression in his eyes was something she held against him. A man shouldn't look troubled. A man should be confident, self-assured in a man­ner that also assured the girl he spoke to. She remembered that back on Earth John Burr had been completely self-assured. It was startling to realize that it was with this newcomer, whose appearance she had every reason to dislike, that she had fallen suddenly and completely in love, as suddenly and completely as if she had fallen off a cliff. "I'm looking for some people," he said. "But I suppose —" His very voice was ill at ease, and that was something else she should have held against him. And against herself. She had al­ways resented men whose voices betrayed their lack of confidence. "I suppose it's no use," he went on. "I'd recognize the house." "Who are the people you're looking for?" He took out a wallet, and from it drew a stereo picture. 'Two children, a boy and a girl, were standing with a smiling young woman in front of a sturdy, old-fashioned plastic house. Their clothes were out of fashion by a year or so, but that depended on where you were. Mars, for in­stance, was always three years behind Earth. Here on Gany­mede, on the other hand, you might even be ahead of Earth in some respects. AS CAROL'S eyes lifted to his, she saw him staring at the picture with such longing that she at once knew herself for a fool. They're his wife and chil­dren, she thought. He's trying to find them. And I had to fall in love with him at first sight. His eyes were on her now, and she said, "I'm sorry, I've never seen them." "Have you lived around here long?" "Five years." "Then this can't be the place." He stood there irresolutely and started to turn slowly away with­out even a word of thanks to her. "My father may have heard about them," said Carol, know­ing herself for a fool again. Past experience, she told her­self ruefully, had taught her noth­ing. The thing to do was to let him go and forget him as quickly as possible, before she learned anything about him, before her feeling for him could become anything more than an irrational, momentary impulse. The strong­er the bonds of knowledge and interest between them, the more painful they would be to break. And the breaking was inevitable. The house where she and her father lived was a simple dome-shaped building, its walls and furniture both made of a silicon plastic whose raw materials had come from the ground on which it stood. There were rugs and draperies of a slightly different composition, woven on the all-purpose Household Helper that her father had bought before leaving Earth. They lived com­fortably enough, she thought, as she led the man in. But he hardly noticed the house or anything in it. When they reached the library and her father looked up from the book he was reading, only then did the man display interest. The book was a favorite of her fath­er's and it made him unhappy to cut his reading short. Nevertheless, he turned off the projector, stood up, and said, "Yes, Carol?" "This man is looking for some — some friends of his, Dad. I thought you might be able to help him." She held out the picture and, to her relief, her father stared at that instead of at her. Sometimes he was a little too shrewd; if she was making a fool of herself, there was no need for him to know it. He could be a sardonic man and he did not suffer fools gladly, even in his own family. He was of the opinion that she had used up her quota of foolish­ness with John Burr. He was shaking his head. "Sorry, I've never seen them. Are you sure they live around here?" "No," said the man. "I'm not sure. I'm not sure of anything, except that they're my wife and kids. And I've got to find them." "Have you checked at the Dis­trict Office?" "I did that first. They couldn't help me, but they said their records weren't complete yet." "They're complete enough, I should think. Maybe they don't list every prospector who wan­ders around without settling down, but they wouldn't be likely to miss a woman and two chil­dren. I'm afraid that you're wasting your time looking on Ganymede." The man's face clouded. "It isn't a waste of my time," he said. "I've got nothing else to do with it. And I have to find them. They need me." MR. MARSH looked away from the man to his daugh­ter, and Carol was a little slow in avoiding his eyes. "I see," he said, and she had an idea of what he meant by that. He saw too much. If he knew, there was nothing she could do about it. She said, "Perhaps Mr. —" She, paused, and the man said dully, "Callendar." "Perhaps if Mr. Callendar would have dinner with us and tell us a little more, we'd .be bet­ter able to help." "Not a bad idea, Carol. We should know a little more." Carol selected a dinner and pressed the button that would start its preparation. Her father said casually, "You are a stranger to Ganymede, aren't you, Mr. Callendar?" "I'm not sure of that," said the man. Her father's eyebrows went up. Carol said, "But you do come from one of Jupiter's moons?" "I can't remember which one. There are a lot of things that my memory's hazy about. I can't even recall the name of the com­pany I worked for as an engi­neer." "That may not be so strange. I find difficulty remembering the school where I taught on Earth. P.S. 654, wasn't it, Dad?" "P.S. 634," Mr. Marsh correct­ed briefly. "You see?" she said. "Do you remember your wife's name? And the names of your children?" "I wouldn't forget them," he said. "My wife's name was Mona." He stared at the wall for a moment, his face without ex­pression. "I can still see the way she looked when I left to undergo treatment. Paul was — let's see, he must be about nine, maybe ten, by this time. And Wilma must be six or seven. I remember how scared she was that time she found a harmless little phytopod. She thought it was going to bite her." "Phytopod?" said Carol. "We don't have them around here. What do they look like?" "They're small and furry, and have two feet that look like roots. When they stand still you're like­ly to mistake them for plants." "You do recall some things," said Carol. "The little things that don't tell me where to look. I remem­ber the time we went on a picnic —I don't recall how many moons there were in the sky — and the ground began to shake. It didn't do any damage, but Wilma was terrified. Paul took it in his stride, though." "There aren't any earthquakes on Ganymede," said her father. "If your memory of that incident is correct, you're looking in the wrong place." "I suppose so," he said. "But what's the right place?" "Perhaps if you thought of a few more incidents, we might figure it out. It's the little things you don't forget that can be most helpful." WHAT nonsense, thought Carol, although she kept the thought to herself. The little things can be most harmful. They keep the pain, and the memory of pain, alive and vivid. She re­membered little things about John all too well — the careless way he wore his clothes, and the way he combed his hair, the cigarettes he smoked, and thefoods he liked to eat. And the stupid way she had let herself fall in love with him. She hadn't even had the excuse of its happening suddenly, as it had happened now. She had be­gun to love John as she had come to know him, disregarding all the evidence of his selfishness, of his genuine inability to care for any one else than John Burr. Unaware of what was going on in her mind, Callendar was saying, with somewhat more anima­tion than he had previously shown, "I think you're right, Mr. Marsh. I've kept my troubles too much to myself. Maybe you can't actually do anything for me, but it wouldn't hurt me to talk. I should have done my talking long ago. When they found me." "Where did they find you?" asked her father. "And what did you mean before, when you said you're not sure of anything?" "They picked me up in a life­boat, drifting some place between Mars and Jupiter. The motor was off, but the power pile was working, and the air-purifying equip­ment was on. I was apparently hibernating. I might have been that way for six months or a year." "And you don't remember —" said Carol. "There's plenty I don't remem­ber, but as I've said, my memory isn't a complete blank. My wife and I and the kids had settled down in a new colony — exactly where it was is one of the things I forget. I believe now that it wasn't Ganymede. Maybe it was some other moon of Jupiter's. "Anyway, I seem to recall hav­ing some trouble with my health, and being taken onto an inter­planetary hospital ship for treat­ment—L-treatment, they called it. That's where they put me to sleep. What happened after that, I can only guess. The ship must have been involved in some acci­dent. I must have been trans­ferred to the lifeboat." "Alone?" asked Carol's father. "No. There were two other pa­tients with me. They were found dead. I was the only one left alive. The bodies of the crew members who transferred us weren't found at all. They might have gone back for more patients and then been unable to get away again." "Who found your lifeboat?" "The crew of a freighter, who spotted it drifting across a space lane. They took me on board and revived me. But they were in a hurry and didn't have much time to stay and investigate." MR. MARSH was thoughtful and silent. Carol asked, "Weren't there any records in the lifeboat?" "Nobody thought of that, at least not in the beginning. At first, when I regained conscious­ness, my mind was almost a com­plete blank. Then I began to re­member things, but not enough. I couldn't recall where the colony had been, and after I had recov­ered enough to be able to get around, I began looking for my wife and children. I haven't come across a trace of them, although I've been on many worlds." The food had long been ready and waiting. Until now, no one had thought of getting it. He stared as if through the wall and Carol, after she had set the dishes before him, had to remind him of their presence. When he did eat, it was automatically, with­out enjoyment. Afterward, her father surprised Carol by saying, "Why not stay with us overnight, Mr. Callendar? We have an extra room, and tomorrow I may be able to give you a little helpful information." The man's eyes came alive. "You're serious? You think that from what I told you, you'll be able to guess where I came from?" "I used the word 'might.' Don't get your hopes up too much." His face fell again. "Thanks for warning me," he said in a flat tone. When, later on, he had gone to his room, Carol said, "Dad, do you really think you can help him?" "That depends on your idea of help. Why are you so interested in him? Perhaps you're falling in love with him, Carol?" "I think so." "Under the circumstances, that's completely idiotic. Would there be any sense in asking why you fell in love with him?" "Well, he looked so lost! I guess it's maternal —" "As genuine a case of the grand passion as I've ever encountered," he said drily. "Almost as genuine as your previous experience." Carol flushed. "He isn't like John." FORTUNATELY, you are right. Burr was essentially a selfish baby. I can't imagine him spending his life looking for a wife and children he had lost. In future, Carol, if you must fall in love at all, do it suddenly. You choose much better that way." "Yes, I know," she said. "Ex­cept for the fact that the wife and children may interfere. But don't worry, Dad. This time I'm not quitting my job and moving several million miles away to try to forget." "There'll be no need for that." His face took on a troubled expression. "You'll have to face your problem right here." YOU haven't answered my question," said Carol. "Do you really think you can help him?" "That isn't an easy one to an­swer. We'll have to prepare him for a shock, Carol. A first-class shock. That's why I wanted to be sure you were in love with him. It may make things easier for him to stand." "What things?" Her father hesitated. "Have you ever heard of this L-treat­ment he mentioned?" She shook her head. "I thought not. Carol," he said, and his voice was unexpectedly full of compassion, "you're going to have a very sick man on your hands. It won't be pleasant for either you or me, and it's going to be horrible for him. But it must be gone through. He must be told." "For heaven's sake, what is it?" "The L in L-treatment," he said slowly, "stands for longevity. That was what he was treated for. But you see now why it was found to be dangerous and dis­continued. The reason you never heard of it is that it was devel­oped and discarded two hundred years ago. Callendar wasn't adrift in space for a year or two, as he thinks. He was adrift for two cen­turies." "No! Oh, no!" "That's why the clothes in those pictures seemed odd. They've been in style and out again half a dozen times, with slight changes each time. That is why, furthermore, he can't find his wife and children on any of Jupiter's moons. The moons were first colonized ninety years ago." "But he says —" "He'll never see his wife and children again. They've lived their lives and died and been buried in the past. He should have died with them in his own time and not lived into ours." "No," said Carol, "or I'd never have known him." She was white and trembling, and her father pulled her to him and let her head rest on his shoulder. Mr. Marsh said, "Perhaps you're right. I don't know. Any­way, he'll have to be told. And for your sake, I'd better do the telling." Carol was silent, and they both thought of the sleeping man who didn't know that his old life had ended and that a new life was to begin so painfully in the morn­ing. —WILLIAM MORRISON THE SLY BUNGERHOP Colmer was five feet four inches tall and as ferocious as a baby bunny, but he had a powerful voice for the size of him. He was using it now. "You bloated battener on better men's brains!" he thundered alliteratively. "What makes you think you know more than I do about the future?" L. Richard de Wike fiddled nervously with the button that would summon his secretary, but refrained from pushing it. He sighed and allowed the storm of vivid invective to burst around his ears. It was a part of his job. There are publishing-house editors who are employed because of a great sensitivity to syntax and style; de Wike had a tin ear. There are editors who hold their jobs because of their ability to make friends and attract authors; de Wike got on badly with his own mother, and all subsequent re­lationships were worse. As an editor, de Wike had only one real talent and that was an ability to absorb punishment. It was enough. Let an author come in and blow his stack—no advertising! a miserable job of production! a deliberate, calculated insult from Miss Hargreave on the switchboard, who pretended not to recog­nize his name!—and it was de Wike who had the task of riding out the storm. His title was Executive Editor, but it might just as well have been Whipping Boy. After half an hour's exercise on de Wike, even the most outraged of authors found his pas­sions spent and was then easy meat for whatever the other editors in the firm wished to do with him. This particular storm, though, showed no signs of spending itself. At a momentary lull, de Wike cleared his throat and said: "Now, really, Colmer. It's only that the editorial board feels your picture of thirty-first-century life lacks a certain warmth. Surely you can understand—" "Warmth!" howled Colmer, freshly enraged. "Good God, de Wike, this is my book and my future. I don't tell you how to cheat an author out of his reprint royalties—don't you tell me what the thirty-first century's going to be like! Remember Tales of Millennium! Remember what Life said in its editorial about T Is for Tomorrow! Remember—" De Wike closed his ears and concentrated on remember­ing. True, Colmer was the best science fiction writer they had. He was also the most temperamental. He didn't look the part in either case—a mousy little man with thick glasses over his watery eyes; he was blind as a bat without them. His heroes conquered galaxies and alien maidens with equal ease and daring; Colmer himself had never ventured west of the Hudson River nor north of his apartment on the Grand Concourse. But the critics loved him and the cash customers ate his books up. So-- Crash! L. Richard de Wike pulled out the mental plugs in his ears and paid attention. Colmer had been making a point about the hereditary cretinism in the ancestry of all pub­lishers' men and had pulled off his glasses to gesticulate with them. He had gestured wildly and collided with the Luna Cup that rested proudly atop de Wike's desk. The crash was the sound of the Luna Cup flying across the room and smashing into silverplated scrap against the base of the marble bust of L. Richard de Wike as a boy. "Now, really, Colmer!" De Wike was horrified. It wasn't just the cost of the cup—that had been only thirty or forty dollars. It was the principle. That cup was awarded for the best line of science fiction books; it had been the property of de Wike's firm for six years running and it had cost a pretty penny, indeed, to set up an organization willing to award it to them, to pay the expenses of the award dinners, to keep the judges complacently in line, year after year. Colmer stared blindly at de Wike. He said in a furious roar, "My only pair of glasses, ruined. And you worry about your lousy cup! Oh, you'll pay for this, de Wike!" And he blundered blindly out of the office, crashing against a chair, a file cabinet and the half-open door. Colmer turned in the general direction of the elevator, afraid of bumping into someone. Hamlet could tell a hawk from a handsaw, but Colmer couldn't—not without his glasses, not from as much as a dozen feet away. Even a human figure merged into mists at six feet or so; he could tell that it was a figure, but identity, age and sex were beyond his recogni­tion. Not that he much cared. The memory of his insults and ill treatment was too strong in his mind. "My only glasses!" he muttered searingly. "The thirty-first century!" A figure that might have been either a pink-faced baboon or a fat man in a brown suit appeared out of the mists and murmured pleasantly: "This way, sir." "Thanks," growled Colmer, and fumbled his way to the elevator. Usually that was easy enough, even without his glasses; de Wike's office was on the top floor, and ordinarily there would be one elevator waiting there, door open, until the starter on the ground floor buzzed it to start its descent. Not this time, though. All the doors were closed. Colmer found the handiest door, stuck his face almost into it to make sure it wasn't another office, and located a signal button. Bending down almost to touch it with his nose to sec that it wasn't a fire alarm or Western Union signal, he put his forefinger on it and pressed. It was an elevator button, all right. It said, "Up." He waited for a second, and then the door opened and he stepped in. Then something registered with him for the first time. De Wike's office was on the top floor. But the button had said "Up." He stared witheringly at the operator, a vague blue blur of uniform with a vague blonde blur of hair on top. Practical jokes? The operator said in a pleasant soprano voice, "Wettigo mizzer?" Colmer demanded suspiciously, "What are you talking about?" "Ah," said the pleasant soprano, and then there was a sort of flat, fleshy click, as though she had popped her bubble-gum. "Where to, sir?" she asked. "Where to!" he mimicked. "Where the devil can I go to? Down, of course! I want to get out of this confounded place before—" "Sorry, sir. This car only goes up. Where would you like to stop?" "Now stop that!" he commanded. Up! There simply was no up, not from de Wike's office—not in this building. "I want to go down. I want to go clown now. And no nonsense about it." "Sorry, sir. This car only goes up. Where would you like to stop?" He stared at her, but her face was no more than a pink blur under the blonde halo. He would have liked to get a better look at her—he was nearly sure all the elevator operators he'd ever seen in this building were men—but, after all, you can't put your face right up against that of a strange blonde with no better excuse than that you've broken your glasses. Or can you? The pleasant soprano said again, "Where would you like to stop, sir?" Like a damned parrot, he thought scathingly, or like a machine. But what could you expect in a building tenanted by creatures like de Wike? He chose a number at random. "A hundred and tenth," he snapped. "And let's get started!" That would hold her. "Sorry, sir. We're already started, but this car only goes up to ninety-nine." "Ah," he said disgustedly, "ninety-nine will do." What was the use of going along with this nonsense? And the car certainly wasn't moving; he was sure of that! He'd ridden in enough elevators to know. Why, his famous free-fall sequence in The Martian Chanukah was based on an express elevator ride from the top of the R.C.A. Building. If this were going up, he would feel heavier; if it were going down, he'd feel lighter. And all he felt was—why, he thought wonder­ingly, queasy. Maybe it was moving, some way or another; certainly he seemed to be having a little trouble keeping his balance. Colmer leaned against the back of the car and glowered blindly into space. Above the closed door there were winking pink-and-green lights—like an indicator, he thought. Well, all right, they were moving. Good. Since the only way to move was down, they would soon be at the ground floor, and he would be out of the building, and then it was only a short cab-ride to the offices of Forestry, Brasbit and Hake, who could be relied on to publish his books the way he wrote them, and who had said as much just the other day ... Still, he thought, softening, de Wike wasn't such a bad sort. As editors went, that is. And old man Brasbit was known to have some idiosyncrasies of his own—for example, there was the time he had hauled five of his own authors into court for violating the option clauses of their contracts—and, on the whole, de Wike's firm could be counted on to be reasonable about things like that. If a better offer turned up for a particular book, they wouldn't usually stand in an author's way. And this present difficulty—well, who was to know whose impression of what the thirty-first century would be like was correct? Colmer thought of it as harsh and mechanized; de Wike's editorial board thought there would be more human softness. Well, why wasn't that possible, too? Suppose in chapter nineteen, for instance, he had the Eugenics Com­mittee set aside the ruling that ninth cousins couldn't intermarry and-- "Here you are, sir. Ninety-nine." "Oh." Colmer blinked. The door was open and the queasy-making motion had stopped. "Thanks," he said, and then, moved by a sudden impulse and the hell with what she might think of it, he put his face close to hers. She didn't slap him. She didn't draw back. She just stood there, waiting. Colmer was suddenly conscious of two things, one of them obvious because it was positive, the other negative and hard to trace. The obvious thing was that this was, indeed, a young lady —or a doll. The face was a doll's face, with bright, unwinking blue eyes, pink and almost inhumanly perfect features. The negative thing was harder. Something was missing. And then, in a moment, it came to him. She didn't smell. Colmer was no lady's man, but he had not completely iso­lated himself from them. Moreover, he read the magazines and—that unfailing barometer of what their readers really liked—the advertisements the magazines contained. He knew that no self-respecting American girl would be caught dead without at least a few drops of scent behind each ear and maybe some sort of perfumed liquid or spray on the hair, plus, of course, something dainty-smelling to protect her from perspiration all day or all week long. But there was no odor whatsoever to the bright and doll-like operator of the car. She said, inches from his face, "You get out here, sir. Ninety-nine." A little afraid of her and more than a little perplexed, Col­mer stepped out. She was pretty but vacuous and insistently repetitious. He wondered if it was worth his while to ask the elevator starter about her. The starter should be right there, under the clock, or chatting with the owner of the cigar stand— Colmer looked blearily and wonderingly around him. No elevator starter. No cigar stand. No clock. Wherever he was, and his myopic vision made it more than merely hard to tell, he was not in the lobby of the Pinkstone Building, where de Wike had his offices. As far as he could tell, he wasn't in a lobby at all. There was a droning electrical sound in the air and a faint, sneezy tang of ozone. Long, glowing corridors spread away from him on either side, and though he could see no details, he could at least see that some of the glowing light came from objects in motion along the corridors. He peered unbelieving, shaking his nearly blind head. This was the end, he thought sourly. If this was some trick of de Wike's—if somehow de Wike had conspired with the operator to bring him to the basement of the building or—No. None of that was possible. Colmer reached out one hand to the wall of the corridor for support, more moral than real, and recoiled. The wall was tingling and warm; it seemed to be vibrating. He screwed his eyes shut and opened them again. Near-sightedness was sometimes an oddly comforting affliction; by being unable to see much of the world around one without glasses, one had sometimes the impression of being wrapped in warm and fuzzy cotton batting, insulated from harm. But not this time. This time, Colmer didn't like the world around him and he wanted to know it better. He opened his eyes and placed his index fingers on the skin at the corners of the eyes, pulling them taut and Oriental. Generally that helped; deforming the eyeball by a little outside pressure sometimes partly took the place of glasses ... Well, no. Or did it? He couldn't tell. The vaguely glowing nimbuses of light that he could see moving did lose some of their fuzziness, but they were warped and distorted into shapes be couldn't recognize— Or didn't want to. He shook his head again and felt the beginning tremor of physical fear. It was all right for philosophers, he thought numbly, to talk of being unable to distinguish dream from reality. Maybe they didn't know whether they were Chinese sages or blue-bottle flies, but maybe they spent their time in a daze anyhow. Not Colmer. He knew: he wasn't dreaming. This was incredible, but it was real. You don't have to pinch yourself to find out if you're awake. You just know. When you stop knowing, you're— You're crazy, he finished. He put that out of his mind, though not easily; but if he was crazy, there didn't seem to be anything he could do about it. Drunk, maybe? No, he hadn't had a drink that day—de Wike, that skunk, hadn't taken him to lunch. Hypnotized? No, that was also pretty improbable; he had seen no one but de Wike; and de Wike, whose personality was neither electric nor even quite bearable, was not the sort of person who could hypnotize another. De Wike couldn't hypnotize a poet, much less a science fiction novelist, always alert for plot gimmicks. That seemed to leave insanity. Well, Colmer thought gloomily, facing up to it, most writers were nuts anyway, or else they would be real estate salesmen, where the big money was, or editors— De Wike kept pestering him about heading their science fiction department. If that was the only remaining possibility, by all the laws of scien­tific evidence Colmer had painstakingly learned at the feet of such Titans as Einstein, Jeans and Sherlock Holmes, then it had to be accepted as true. Unless— He laughed ruefully. It was a silly thought, but there was one other possibility. Suppose, for instance, that maybe one of the stories he made his living by was—well, true? It was funny. More than funny—it was downright hilari­ous; he was beginning to drink the stuff he made himself. But just suppose, he thought, stretching the corners of his eyes in a vain attempt to see just what the devil it was he had got into, just suppose there really was such a thing as, for example, a weak spot in the paratime web. Whatever that was. He'd used it glibly enough in stories and he had intended it to mean that certain places might be sort of gateways be­tween the familiar world of H-bombs and TV commercials and—different worlds. Parallel worlds, in a space of more than four dimensions. Suppose it was true? Suppose the elevator had somehow transported him into an if world or maybe another planet? There was a strange taste at the back of Colmer's mouth. He looked around him with effort. Wherever he looked, the walls glowed with light. The ceiling—high overhead, as far as he could tell—also glowed. The light varied in color, but his eyes, even pulled out of shape, were too inefficient to pick out details. In some places, the lights were moving. Now what would that be? A factory, perhaps? He suddenly got part of the answer. People, he thought. People walking. Their clothes were luminous as the walls; maybe that was the moving blobs of light. Colmer took a deep breath and walked toward the moving lights. The confounded things pursued their own paths. He select­ed a lavender pair of blobs, hurried toward them; they were gone. Ducked into a doorway? He couldn't tell. Disappointed, he stopped short. A pale blue glow appeared and came toward him. When it was a dozen feet away, he saw that it was in fact the approxi­mate size and shape of a man. He cleared his throat and blocked the path. The pale blue glow said, "You-all tucker me?" Colmer jumped; deep-south Alabama he had not expected. He asked, "What?" "Dassita say. Tucker me?" Colmer said miserably, "I don't know what you're talking about. All I know is I pushed the up button and—well, here I am." The man in glowing blue said something quick and impa­tient; Colmer couldn't even hear him, much less understand. He turned away and called something to a glow of muted rose that was approaching down the hall. It sounded like, "Putta sly bungerhop"; there was more to it, but not that Colmer could understand. The rose glow came closer and, in turn, revealed itself to be human. There was a very quick, low-voiced conference, and then the rose glow said, "Que veut-vous?" French, thought Colmer. Could he be suddenly in France? He said slowly, "I only speak English. Can you tell me where I am?" Click-pop—it was the sound the elevator operator had made, like popping bubble-gum. Then the man in glowing rose said, "You are in the Palace Building, on the tenth floor. Can't you see the signs?" It was a pleasant, reassuring voice —but accented somehow. The accent was not French, whatever it was. Colmer said doubtfully, "I can't see much of anything. My eyes are bad and I've broken my spectacles." "Ah," said the pale blue glow in a tone of satisfaction, "putta sly bungerhop." "Wayman," the rose glow said, and then, to Colmer, "You came in the slide?" "I came in the elevator, if that's what you mean." There was a silence, as though the man were studying him. Colmer made himself say, with studied indifference, "just as a matter of curiosity, could you tell me what planet we're on?" The man laughed, but there was a puzzled wonder in his laughter. "Excuse me," he said, "we're rushed just now—" He began to move away. "Please," Colmer begged blindly. "I'm serious. Are we on­—uh—the planet Earth?" "Of course!" "How far away is the Sun?" "The Sun?" Pause. "I don't know. Ninety million miles, something like that." "How many moons?" The man laughed again, but with a definite note of strain. He backed away. He must think I'm crazy, thought Colmer, and small wonder! "Wait!" Colmer called. "Look, can you tell me—let's see, can you tell me where the manager is?" There would have to be a manager, or something like a manager, and maybe that would get him to someone who could explain things. "Manager?" The voice was doubtful. "I don't know—oh, I see. Front office, eh? First floor." "Thanks," said Colmer gratefully. "How do I get there?" "Side drop," the man said impatiently. "What's that?" Colmer begged, but the man was gone. Colmer cursed to himself. He should have saved a few choice words, he thought, and not wasted them all on an innocent like de Wike. He had never before met such unhelp­ful people. Still, maybe things weren't so bad. Side drop. Maybe He moved over to the side of the corridor. That might be the "side" part. He stuck his nose close to the wall and moved along until he found a pattern of lights that seemed to offer some help. The glow of lights in his nearsighted eyes nearly blinded him, but at least he could distinguish the fine details in the difference of color. These marks were red letters against a glowing gray back­ground—syncopated, sketchy letters that formed misspelled words: "Hozontal transmit," "Noth End," "Wes End," and —"Syd Drop." This was the place, all right. Now what? He ran his eyes along the walls. No buttons to push. Ap­parently there was some trick to it. He gingerly felt the wall all around the glowing words "Syd Drop" It vanished. The floor fell away from beneath him. For a second, he was petrified, and then some invisible force steadied him and he came to a stop. Now where was he? There were more moving lights here than on the tenth floor and some of them were approaching him. "Excuse me," he said, clutching at the nearest. "I'd like to talk to the manager, please, or whatever you call him." CIick-pop again. A woman's voice this time. "Manager? One who manages—oh, North Transmit." Apparently even the females of these people were sparing of words. He sighed and stuck his face up against a wall again. This time he knew what to expect and he was not surprised when he suddenly felt himself clutched, whirled and carried rapidly in a horizontal direction. Off the "Noth Transmit," he stared around, stretching his eyes, which were beginning to water and ache very much. There was a large glowing patch of white light set in the middle of the gray, and a greenish glow moving toward it. He intersected the greenish glow. "Is this the manager's office—I mean the front office?" The greenish glow growled at him and moved away. Col­mer hesitated. Then he heard voices coming from behind the glowing patch of white. He moved toward it slowly. One of the voices was familiar. It was saying, "Thing temple sly. Putta bungerhop, thing." Colmer pulled at his aching eyes again and saw, through the square of white, two lesser glows, one violet, one a familiar blue. That was the voice. It was the man he had met back on the tenth floor, here before him. Colmer sighed and felt his way through the glowing white door. As long as the man was going this way anyhow, why hadn't he escorted Colmer and spared him the nearly impossi­ble job of finding his own way here? These people, curse their inconsiderateness! Colmer said loudly, "I'd like to speak to the manager." There was no click-pop this time; the man answered him at once in English. "About what you're doing here?" The voice was again accented, but in a way like nothing Colmer had ever heard. "That's right," Colmer said doggedly. "How did I get here?" "That's what I was going to ask you," said the manager. "Do you have a permit for the temporal slide?" "The what?" Colmer gritted his teeth. "Look, I was waiting for the elevator. I pushed the button marked `Up' and the elevator stopped and—" "Temple sly bungerhop!" crowed the enraging blue glow. The violet one, the manager, said, "Wait a minute. Where were' you when this happened?" "Why—the Pinkstone Building. The twentieth floor. That's the top floor, you see, so I wondered about that button. But I had just broken my glasses and I couldn't see very well, so—well, here I am." There was a rapid and confused babbling among the glows —more voices than two, Colmer realized, and by squeezing his eyes again, he discovered that there were at least half a dozen persons in the room. Colmer couldn't follow a word of it, though it had a haunting familiarity, like syncopated and slurred English, until the violet-glowing manager's voice said, "Wait a minute until everyone gets his translator on." There was a series of tiny click-pops. "Now," said the manager, "you'd better explain." His tone was mild, but it seemed to carry a threat. Colmer said bravely, "I've got nothing to explain. I never saw this place before in my life. I've had the devil of a time getting around—practically had to feel my way—and your people weren't very helpful, either. They didn't tell me a thing except how to reach this place." Pause. Then the manager's voice said meditatively, "That may be just as well. What do you think, Arrax?" A silvery glow just within the range of Colmer's vision said, "But how did he find the temporal slide?" "What about that?" the manager demanded. "What were you doing just before that?" "Why—" Colmer stopped, remembering. "I was talking to my publisher. We'd been discussing a new book of mine—I'm a science fiction writer, you see. The book was about the thirty-first century. I said the thirty-first century was likely to be a harsh, mechanistic—" "Out loud?" "What? Of course. How else?" "Ah," said the distant bass rumble of the silvery glow in a satisfied tone. "And the monitor—" "Yes," agreed the manager, less satisfied. "The monitor vec­tored him in to the temporal slide and he pushed the slide button up. The question is, now what?" He paused. "You," he said to Colmer, "when did all this happen?" "When?" Colmer was completely at sea. "About one-thirty, I'd say. I remember it was time for lunch and—" "You misunderstand me. What year?" "What year?" Colmer blinked and a great light seemed to come over him. "Oh," he said faintly. "Temporal slide, eh? What year? You mean—" "Of course," said the manager. "You got on the temporal slide, going up. You're in the ninety-ninth century." There was a ragged series of click-pops and another argu­ment raged in the slurred and sketchy English. Colmer didn't mind; it gave him a chance to catch his breath. What an opportunity! What an incredible, gorgeous, mil­lion-billion-trillion-dollar opportunity! The ninety-ninth cen­tury and here he was smack in the middle of it! Let de Wike argue with him now—here was his chance to write science fiction that would live and sell and make his name famous forever! There was a sudden local concentration of chatter at the door and then a new figure in a glowing suit—orange, this time—joined the party. He approached Colmer, close enough so that Colmer could actually see the face. It was a man, not young, not old, no taller than Colmer himself, with a wise and patient and studious face. He poked something glittering and gleaming under Colmer's eyes. Flaring white light danced out and blinded Colmer for a second. "Hey!" cried Colmer. "What the devil do you think you're doing?" Click-pop; a series of click-pops. The manager's voice soothed, "Ogratz is a doctor. You understand, we have to have a doctor look you over." "Oh, all right," Colmer grumbled. "Listen, I've got a million questions! My year was 1961. Now what happened right after that?" The booming silver-glow voice said, "The recommendation for the monitor, then, is to replace it with a human." Colmer interrupted: "Excuse me! Now, after 1961, when was the next war? Did the Russians—hey! Ouch!" It was bright green light this time and it stung. The doc­tor said something under his breath in a satisfied tone. The manager's voice said, "Arrax, the whole thing was a stupid error; I've always said that robot monitors were a false economy. We'll have to change the code word. `Century' isn't any good now. Maybe we ought to replace the slide operators, too, but we can table that. As for this one—" "You mean me?" Colmer yelped. "Look, get this fellow away from me, will you? I want to know about the H-bomb. Was it ever used? Did Nasser get—" "We'll vote yes on the monitors," said Arrax. "I leave the arrangements to you. What about him, Doctor?" The doctor stepped away from Colmer, scratching his cheek. "Well," he said meditatively, "it checks. Fovea cen­tral, bilateral occlusions. Efficiency? I'd say fifteenth percen­tile rods, twenty-fifth cones—oh, yes. Without his glasses, he's just about blind. Couldn't have seen a thing." Colmer began to grow irritated. "I told you I didn't see anything. Now why don't you get me some glasses as a starter? I'd like a look at what technological wonders you people—" "Shall I?" asked the doctor. The manager chuckled. "Why not?" "Thanks," said Colmer, gratified as the dim orange glow that was the doctor bent and did something with what seemed to be the equivalent of a little black bag. "Now about my questions. Do you think you could spare me someone who speaks English to act as—" "I have the report," the manager said, ignoring him. "The people who spoke to him told him nothing of any conse­quence." "Good," said the silvery glow named Arrax. "Take care, then." "Wait a minute!" Colmer cried. "That sounds as if you were going to send me back! Please, just let me stay a little while, won't you? I promise not to be any trouble! Listen, there must be lots of things I can do for you—bring you up to date on the twentieth century, maybe, or help your his­torians check facts, or—" "Certainly." soothed the manager. "Of course." " He ad­vanced on Colmer and took his arm. "If you'll just come this way, we'll take care of everything. Into this little door—that's right. And—here, don't forget these—" He pressed something into Colmer's hand. There was a sudden flare of polychrome light, brighter than light had ever been before... . The world went black, and spun, and then sharpened again. Colmer, ready for anything, fearful of everything, reached out, touched a wall, braced himself, turned— A man was approaching him. "Arrax?" he called fearfully. "Dr. Ogratz? Manager?" "Why, Colmer!" said the voice, pleased. "I thought you'd gone." It was L. Richard de Wike. Colmer slumped against the wall. It was all over. It was too late. "Heavens, but he has mellowed fast," thought L. Richard de Wike. And it was true. Colmer had acted very peculiarly —what was that nonsense of looking for an "Up" button at the elevators?—but now he seemed quiet, mild, reasonable—almost dazed. "Look," said de Wike eagerly, "suppose we go out to lunch? We're reasonable men. It doesn't matter about the Luna Cup—and I'm sure we can work something out about your book. After all, I'm no expert on what's really going to happen centuries from now—" Colmer turned and looked at him through his new glasses —funny, thought de Wike; I could have sworn he said those others were his only pair. And these were odd-looking, rose-pink, of a most unusual shape. "That's true," said Colmer at last. "And, damn it, neither am I." De Wike blinked happily. "Why, now, that's the way to look at it, Colmer," he said. "Let's go to lunch now, shall we? Just you and I, eh?" Colmer paused. He looked around him, with the sharpness of vision the new glasses had brought. Here was where he had pressed the "Up" button (no button, no scar, no shadow now to mark where it had been). There was where the monitor had met him, triggered by the code-word "century." A secret recess in the wall? An imagined figure, born of suggestion and gullible neurones? Whatever it was, there was no trace of the monitor or its hiding place there, either. No trace of anything. No chance that, ever again, Colmer would find the key and unlock the door to the future, where—surely this time!—forewarned and careful, he would find some way to stay there long enough to learn. No chance? Colmer drew a deep breath, his first breath of hope and—greed? Whatever it was, greed or nobility, that makes men want to know what is forbidden to them. He said, "Sure, de Wike." He said, "Certainly, de Wike, let's talk things over. The two of us understand each other, after all!" And he said, "Oh, by the way, de Wike—I just happened to think, de Wike. Haven't you kept asking me to head up your science fiction book department?" And so it was that Colmer, rose-pink glasses and all, came to occupy the office next to de Wike's, and the refurbished Luna Cup now sits atop his desk. He's a good editor. He understands the problems of the writer; he sympathizes deeply; he comprehends fully; and the contracts he signs give an author a full fifteen per cent less than any other editor in the firm has ever been able to manage. His employers are well satisfied, except for his one little idiosyncrasy. Editors do their work over the lunch table and maybe so, in a way, does Colmer; but what his colleagues see is a man who brings a brown-paper bag of sandwiches to the office every morning, and never steps out of the place at noon; and every day from twelve to one-fifteen, stands in the corridor outside his door, where once a blurred figure led him to a button. He has a sandwich in one hand and a dictionary in the other; and it is munch and read, munch and read, for seventy-five minutes every day; and if there is a word that will un­lock the monitor's help again, it begins with no letter up through the letter R. Frederik Pohl is one of the collaboration'est men even in this field in which multiple authorship is so common. He is best known, of course, for his excellent novels (both science fiction and "straight") with C. M. Kornbluth. He has worked with Jack Williamson on a likable series of teen-age books; and he has further collaborated, in an all but impenetrable haze of pseudonyms, with Isaac Asimov, Frederic Arnold Kummer, Jr., Robert W. Lowndes, Dirk Wylie .. This story is, I believe, his first with F&SF's Broadway critic William Morrison. Fittingly it deals with collaboration—if in quite a different sense: the sense which the word acquired, in World War II, of helping the invader to maintain his control over one's own people. This control is, fortunately for the world, not so simple a matter as a galactic Viceroy may think. There is, Messrs. Morrison and Pohl shrewdly point out, a certain inevitable flaw in any collaborationist structure. Stepping Stone by WILLIAM MORRISON and FREDERIK POHL ARTHUR CHESLEY WAS A CHEMIST, but you mustn't think of him as a scientist. He was nothing of the kind. He didn't inquire into the secrets of nature—maybe once he had, but then the foundation grants ran out; and since his specialty couldn't be twisted to sound as though it had anything to do with either nuclear energy or cancer cure it was a matter of get a job or starve. So he got a job. He spent eight hours a night, six nights a week, watching a stainless steel kettle with his fingers crossed. "She's getting hot, Mr. Chesley!" one of the lab assistants would yell, and he'd have to run over and tell them what to do. "Pressure's up, Mr. Chesley!" another would cry, and he'd have to do something about that—or anyway, tell the assistants what to do, because the union rules were pretty strong about who did the actual work. It was all a matter of polymerization, which is cooking little short molecules into big long molecules, and what came out of it all was rubber, or maybe plastic wrappers, or the stuff that goes into children's toys, depending on what was needed right then—and also on whether or not the kettle exploded. Well, it was an easy job, except when the pressure suddenly climbed. And it was night work, so Chesley had his days free. He kind of liked it, partly because he got to boss the crew of assistants around. And they didn't mind. They thought the whole thing was pretty funny, partly because they got two-forty an hour against Chesley's dollar-seventy-five. Chesley's wife didn't think that was funny at all. What she said was: "Stepping stone! Arthur, you've been in a rut for seven years and I want to tell you that I'm getting tired of stepping stones that don't step anywhere and— Another thing, why can't you work days like anybody else instead of sleeping all the time I'm trying to clean the house? Did you ever stop to think how much trouble that makes for me? Can't you have any consideration for anybody else and— And why can't you make your own lunch to take to the plant? Other men make their own lunches. If you wouldn't sit around the house watching television you'd have time to make your lunch, not to mention doing a few other little— That reminds me, what's keeping you from putting up the screens? The house will be crawling, and I mean crawling, with every bug in the Bronx if you don't get around to it. You hear me? Or is that too menial a job for a real chemist—a real chemist that's got a job that's a stepping stone to a fine career of— Arthur! Arthur, I'm talking to you! You come back here!" But the job did leave his days free. Chesley escaped from the house and headed down toward the corner bar, where the barkeep drew him a beer with a half-inch collar without waiting to be asked. "You're early," said the bartender, handing Chesley his change. "I thought you'd be watching television." "That's what I wanted," Chesley said bitterly. "I wanted to see that new program they're talking about." The barkeep said, "That Viceroy thing?" "Yeah. The one they cancelled all the other shows for. Harry, what's the matter with you that you don't have a TV like every other bar in the Bronx?" "It's my wife," the bartender explained; and maybe that wouldn't have been enough for any other man, but it was enough for Arthur Chesley. The bartender said, "Say, whyn't you go see it in person?" "You mean at the studio?" "Nah. No studio. Here." And the bartender picked a card off the top of a stack at the end of the counter. "Fellow left these here this morning." Chesley read it, sipping his beer. FREE ONE DOLLAR FREE it said at the top, and that was pretty interesting. These nuts, he thought, I wonder how they're going to wiggle out of it in the fine print? Chesley had a wide experience of things marked "free," and they had always, always turned out to be not so very free at all. The small print—not very small, either—said only: The Viceroy will make an announcement of unparalleled importance to every person in the world TODAY At the Yankee Stadium * ONE DOLLAR FREE to every person attending * FIVE ADDITIONAL DOLLARS FREE to every person who stays to the end of the program. "Whoever he is," Chesley said, offering to return the card. "Keep it. It's probably some kind of advertising deal, you know?" "If it is, it costs plenty of money," said Chesley. "Why, the Stadium must hold more than seventy-five thousand people. If everybody gets six bucks, why—hey, that's nearly half a million dollars!" "Nah. Nobody's going to spend half a million," said Harry positively. "Um," said Chesley. He finished his beer and put the card in his pocket. "I don't know," he said, "maybe I'll take a look." And why not? Because after all it was nearly twelve hours until it was time to polymerize some more molecules, and the only other place he could think of was home. They really did give away a dollar. Somebody had hooked up gadgets to the turnstiles, and when you pushed your way through there was a click and a rattle and a dollar bill popped up through a slot like a paper towel in a restaurant washroom. It looked real, too. There were seats down in the field, just like at a prize fight, and about where the pitcher's box usually was, there was a platform with microphones and TV cameras. There must have been plenty of people in the Bronx who enjoyed getting a dollar FREE, because the seats filled up rapidly. Arthur was early—that was his habit; and he got a good seat. He had nothing to do but chat with his neighbors and eat. He bought himself two hot dogs and an ice cream cone. Ordinarily he was careful about his money—that is, his wife was careful about money and he was careful about his wife —but he regarded the dollar as found money, and he had every intention of staying on to the bitter end, regardless, in order to collect the other five. At about the time all the seats were filled he discovered that he really was going to stay on, regardless. Because as soon as the Stadium was full the gates were closed; and Chesley could see that they were being locked, and that guards were standing firmly in front of them, turning people away. There wasn't any way out. And then the field lights flickered and spots came on, beaming down at the platform. And a man appeared. He appeared. He didn't walk quickly up the stairs, or come out from behind a curtain. He appeared. The only part of that statement that is questionable is that he was "a man." Chesley thought that, taking everything into account, he looked like a man. But he was ten feet tall; and he had a halo that glowed all around him. He said good evening, and his voice was heard all over the park. Maybe it was the microphones, but Chesley didn't think the sound came from the microphones; it seemed to come from the speaker himself; and the voice was odd. Not metallic. Not foreign. Not any of the words that people use to describe the voices of people. It sounded non-peoplish; it sounded strange. Out of the corner of his eye Chesley saw commotion, and realized that some people were fainting. But not him. He did choke a little on the last of his ice cream cone, but he managed to get it down. Still and all, he did have a sick feeling in his stomach. It wasn't from the hot dogs. The man said: "I am not a man." A muffled moan from eighty thousand voices. Chesley only nodded. "I take the form of a man in order to permit you to see me," boomed the voice. "I am your Viceroy." A couple of hundred people, near the exits, had had all they could take. No mere five dollars was enough to make them stay. But the Viceroy was. The desperate ones jumped up from their seats, ran shouting toward the guards; and maybe the guards couldn't have stopped them, but the Viceroy could; he pointed his finger. They stopped. In fact, they were frozen. Most of them toppled over, rigid. Arthur Chesley thought that this was very interesting. Living with his wife had done things to his temperament; he was so unused to strong emotion that he didn't recognize it when it came. He was scared to death. His heart was beating wildly; he had violent cramps in his stomach. But since he had never been terribly afraid before, he didn't realize it. He even tried to order a bottle of soda pop. But apparently the vendor knew more about his emotions than Chesley did; because he had disappeared. The Viceroy went on: "I have been sent by my people to prepare this planet for their habitation." Moans again, and another nod from Chesley. That figured, he thought; it would have to be something like that. He began to shake, and wondered why. "I have been sent alone," boomed the voice, "because I need no aid. I myself can cope with any force your puny Earth can send against me. Singlehanded I can destroy every Army." The audience had stopped moaning; it was stunned, or most of it was. Then the first shock began to wear off and Chesley began to hear voices. "Fake!" cried someone, and "Who're you kidding?" screamed someone else. And there were uglier noises than that, too. "I can do some things that you do not even suspect!" cried the Viceroy in a terrible voice. "Watch, Earthlings! Watch me and see!" He began to grow. The eighty thousand throats rasped in unison as every person present caught his breath. The Viceroy lengthened, like a stretched string. Ten feet tall? He became fifteen feet tall—twenty feet—thirty. Not an inch broader, but he towered as high as the top of the stands themselves before he was through. "See!" he bellowed, and the giant organ voice, nowhere near the microphones now, made the concrete walls of the Stadium shudder. "Watch now!" he commanded; and he began to broaden. Now he was a giant, not a string man; still thirty feet tall, but nearly ten feet across the shoulders, too. And then he began to shrink—only downwards, until he was a squashed butter-man, pressed down to a height that was less than his thickness, an oblate spheroid with a gross flat head at the top and gross chunky legs underneath. And then he shrank his width, until he was the same size and shape as at first. The halo flashed orange sparks. Mirrors? Chesley wondered. Probably it was mirrors. All the same, it was a good thing that he hadn't been able to buy that soda pop, because it would have gone down his windpipe. The Viceroy thundered in a far-more-than-human voice: "I shall inform certain of you of what their duties will be. The rest of you may continue with your piddling little human lives—for the time being." The halo flared violet. "Meanwhile," rumbled the enormous voice, "do not think of resistance. It cannot succeed. I shall prove to you that I am invulnerable. Absolutely invulnerable! To weapons—" A barrage of machine-gun fire from a battery at the side of the speaker's stand. Bright yellowish tracers ricocheted up and out over the cringing audience. "To poison gas—" A man in a blue uniform climbed onto the stand and directed a flexible hose at the Viceroy. Chesley shrugged; what difference did it make? The machine-gun bullets had been all the evidence anyone really needed. But there was more: "To fire—" A flame-thrower squirted a flaring blob of napalm; it clung to the Viceroy's halo; flickered; went out. "To atomic energy"— Chesley half rose—"but I shall not demonstrate that at this time, as too many of you would be casualties. Now you may go. My peace be with you." And the halo flared white, and he was gone. Chesley slowly joined the fleeing crowd. Such things, Chesley realized, could be faked. But they impressed him none the less. And they impressed a lot of other people—for example, the man who went through the exit turnstile ahead of Chesley, who was in such a sweat that he raced through without stopping to pick up his five-dollar-bill, leaving it for Chesley—along with Chesley's own. He came home with ten dollars and change and his wife, for the first time in some years, was immensely pleased. So were a very few other persons throughout the world—nearly one half of whom had seen the Viceroy in person or on television, or had heard his voice on the radio. But even they didn't stay pleased, not for very long. II By the time that most of the world's population was very displeased indeed, Chesley's wife was saying—or screeching: "Stepping stone! Now you've done it, Arthur, you've stepped your stepping stone right out of a job entirely! How are we going to face my mother, Arthur? How? I ask you, how can I go to see her in her new thirty-five-thousand dollar house and tell her the man I married over her objections is fired? And what about these taxes? We can't pay them, you know that! If you were half a man you'd go to work in the V.G. like Elsie Morgenstern's husband down the block. They don't have to worry about where their next meal is coming from and— And what about those people that were blown up yesterday? They were out of a job. The Viceroy just killed them all, killed them, and I'd like to know what would happen to me if— Arthur! Now, come back here!" Harry swabbed a damp cloth over the bar and looked up morosely. "What'll it be, Arthur? Reeky-Cola, lemon fizz, a shot of ginger ale?" "I'll take milk," said Chesley, sliding onto a stool. It wasn't the same, of course. Taking one consideration with another, Chesley thought judiciously, the Viceroy hadn't done a bad job of reorganizing the Earth in five weeks, even if his most recent step was to abolish the production of certain synthetic rubber articles which, in turn, abolished Chesley's job. But he shouldn't have prohibited beer. Harry poured the milk glumly and leaned on the bar, watching Chesley sip it. "You know Flaherty?" he asked. "Well, he was one of them that got it yesterday." "Flaherty? Ronald Flaherty?" Chesley was shocked. "You mean he was in that bunch of out-of-work people that the Viceroy ki—" "They was misled by corrupt agitators," Harry interrupted. "Oh, no, Harry. I mean, Flaherty wasn't—" "They was misled by corrupt agitators," Harry repeated with great emphasis, and he nodded his head toward the back of the bar. Where stacks of bottles once had been, now there was a floral display around a placard that read: Loyalty to the Viceroy is every Earthling's first duty. -THE VICEROY And under the placard, a microphone. "I see what you mean," Chesley said quickly. "Yeah, they certainly were misled by corrupt agitators." He tasted his milk, and the milk wasn't sour—no, no milk was sour, not after the Viceroy had made a few examples of persons dealing in spoiled foodstuffs. But Chesley's thoughts were. Those fifty persons had been picketing the Viceregal Deputy Zone Commander's Headquarters, asking for jobs. And, bam, a violet flare; and they were all dead. It didn't pay to be unemployed, that was the first conclusion he reached. But what could he do about it? Dr. Pebrick, Chief Managing Chemist of the synthetic rubber works, had made it very clear that he was lucky to hang onto his job, and there was no possibility whatever that Chesley would be rehired. He would have to get a job somewhere else. That was the second conclusion. Chesley sighed and finished his milk. "Say, Harry," he called. "Got a New York Times?" "Yeah." The barkeep pulled a folded paper out of the otherwise empty bar-tools rack under the counter. "Here." "Thanks," said Chesley, opening it to the Help Wanted section. "And let me have a be—" "You mean," interrupted Harry, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the placard and the mike, "you would like another glass of delicious, invigorating, one-hundred-per-cent pure milk, which the Viceroy recommends above all other beverages for human consumption?" "Yes," sighed Chesley. "Another milk." The agency was crowded, but since it was the only one in the paper that had listed in its ad, Man, chmcl trng, admstv pos, sal open, he had no choice but to wait out the line. It took nearly half a day, which Chesley passed, as best he could, by conversation with the others in line—guarded at first, then more and more open, until the man ahead of him happened to glance up at the picture of the Viceroy that hung on the wall over his head. He turned white; sweat broke out on his forehead; he slumped, caught himself, started to speak, and then burst out of his place in line and raced back through the long hall to the elevators. There was a microphone under the picture. Chesley shook his head ruefully and kept silent for the rest of the time. It didn't pay to talk too much. The Viceroy wasn't everywhere—though, being far from human, he was in an astonishing number of places at astonishing times. But his Guard, the V.G., was in even more places all the time. Chesley had passed one just outside the door—a man in a blinding blue uniform, who parked blatantly near a fire hydrant and strolled away. In a matter of seconds a traffic cop caught sight of the car and charged toward it, fire in his eye and one hand dragging his summons pad out of his pocket. But then the cop caught sight of the magic letters V.G. on the place where the license plate would have been—if the Viceregal Guard bothered with license plates—and he turned pale and staggered away as though he had had a narrow escape. Which he had. Chesley shook his head again. It was hard to reconcile the idea of old Iry Morgenstern down-the-block with the total and awful powers of a member of the V.G. But there were too many things these days that couldn't be reconciled, he wasn't going to bother his head about them. The Viceregal Guard served a function, he supposed. That is, if the Viceroy served a function, well, then the Guard was pretty necessary. The Viceroy could reach down and strike any human, anywhere; but apparently he couldn't find the human who was thwarting his efforts without a little on-the-spot help from the V.G. He was perfectly capable of wiping out a whole city if it angered him—witness Omaha, in the second week of his reign—but it happened that Omaha was not the site of any of his own special projects. Most every other city in the world did have a high-priority Viceroy's Project going—increasing the rate of births, building up human health, building cryptic objects for unknown purposes—oh, there was no limit to the things the Viceroy wanted Earth to do in preparation for the landing of his own extra-solar race. And it was the Viceregal Guard that was charged with seeing that they were done. From the moment he arrived he had been recruiting, and paying well. It was his first human helpers who had turned up at the offices of the radio and television networks with fabulous bundles of cash in their pockets, who had rented Yankee Stadium for a fantastic price; and those human helpers were now the colonels and generals and marshals and generalissimos of the V.G. The V.G. seldom killed anybody, but they had power of life and death all the same. For—annoyingly—people kept trying to take advantage of the Viceroy. They knew it meant death to be discovered, but there were persons who complained because they couldn't afford the taxes and because they were thrown out of jobs they'd held for decades and because their homes were ripped down to make room for Viceroy's Projects. Some of the Projects didn't make all the sense in the world, Chesley thought—for example, did the Viceroy really need the four-acre swimming pool he was putting up on the lots that Rockefeller Center had once inhabited? But there was no questioning them; those who questioned were punished. Others sold impure foods—the Viceroy was vehement about human health, apparently because his people were going to want plenty of good, strong servants. Others insanely sold inferior or incorrect materials to the Projects themselves. Others did forbidden research—there was a long, long list of prohibited topics. And the Viceregal Guards tracked them down, and then, as soon as the busy Viceroy could get it onto his schedule, somewhere on the Earth's face there was a bam and a violet flare, and another sinner had met his fate. All it took was one word from a member of the V.G., and . . . bam. So it didn't pay to tangle with the V.G., because— Chesley stopped in mid-thought, disconcerted. "What?" Somebody was saying impatiently, "You, there! Come on, you're holding up the whole line. Next!" "Sorry," mumbled Chesley. He had been waiting so long that it was a shock to realize he had finally gained the threshold of one of the employment agency's interviewers. He stumbled in, laid his hat on the desk, hastily picked it up again, put it on his lap and said: "I'm here about that ad in this morning's N. Y. Times—" "So," sighed the red-headed, weary-eyed girl behind the desk, "are six hundred others. But wait a minute—you're a chemist? Oh. Well—" Chesley listened in growing consternation. Chemical training, the ad had said, administrative position. He had thought, naturally, that it would be checking over some manufacturing company's crude materials supply orders, or maybe, at the most daring, a little routine analysis. It turned out to be anything but those. It was, in fact, so different from what he had expected that it terrified him. He stammered, "I'm s-sorry, sir —I mean, ma'am, but I don't th-think I'm qualified." "We're the best judges of that," the interviewer told him sternly. She paused significantly. "Of course," she added, "we're not forcing the work on you. You're free to take the job or leave it, as you choose. However, if you leave it—" She stopped there. Chelsey thought about what would happen if he refused: the loyalty investigation, the arrest, the disgrace, the report to the Viceroy, the violet flare and the bam. He nodded. "Yes, ma'am," he said timidly. "You're right, ma'am. I'll take it, of course." It seemed that there was a uniform that went with the work—a blinding blue uniform, and on every bright chromium button were stamped the letters: V.G. III For a very short time Chesley's wife was impressed. She said the uniform looked nice on him, so trim and neat, and it broadened his shoulders and made him look like a soldier. And Chesley himself, when he stopped being afraid of himself, found that it scared the pants off practically everybody who saw it except other members of the V.G. For the first time in his life he felt the surge of personal power through his previously calm veins. "But why on earth should they hire you?" his wife demanded. "You're not a policeman." "They don't need policemen. They need people with chemical training, for instance. I'm a Research Investigator." "But you're not a researcher!" Chesley said loftily, "You don't understand. I don't do research, I investigate people who do research. Remember? Some kinds of research are forbidden. I check up on them, see? For instance, one of the first things I'm going to do is drop in on the rubber works. I want to talk to Dr. Pebrick." "Your boss? About time!" his wife exclaimed. "I never thought I'd live to see it, Arthur, you getting up enough nerve to tell that fat—" "It isn't a question of nerve, dear," he explained. "When I worked for him it was different. Now I'm a member of the V.G.and not a private, either! No, sir." He patted his stripes proudly. "See, dear? I'm a corporal!" "Corporal?" He nodded triumphantly. She asked, with a dangerous note in her voice, "Is corporal higher than major?" Chesley was shocked. "Oh, no, dear. Major is much higher. There's sergeant, top sergeant, lieutenant, captain—" "Major is higher?" Mrs. Chesley stamped her plump foot. "You mean," she demanded, "that you're going to have to take orders from Elsie Morgenstern's husband? Arthur, I swear, I don't think you ever take into consideration the fact that I'm entitled to some respect in this neighborhood! Oh, I can't face Elsie Morgenstern after this! She'll put on that cat-eats-the-canary look and—Arthur, what's my mother going to say? My sister Caroline's husband's a lieutenant, and he's three years younger than you, and I always thought he was the biggest— Arthur, I never should have listened to you! Stepping stones! I go through seven years of misery and scrimping on your stepping stones, and then when you finally get a chance to make a man out of yourself with a half-way decent job in the V.G., you take the first offer they make, showing no guts, no strength, and — Arthur! Arthur, I'm warning you, don't you dare leave this house!" Still, Chesley's first official act was to visit his old employer, and that made up for a lot, There is no need to go into details about it. Chesley was not yet used to throwing his weight around, but he knew the principles of throwing a scare into the lesser breeds, having been subjected to the technique many times, and it is of record that fifteen minutes after he had left the laboratory where he had formerly slaved, Dr. Pebrick called up his lawyer and made the will he had been putting off for ten years. After that Chesley began to see the world. He was amazed to see what sort of a world it was. There are people who take seriously the pronouncements of politicians and government leaders, who realize the connection between a change of policy on bimetallism and the fact that today or tomorrow the price of eggs will go up or bombs will fall on Nova Scotia. Chesley was not one of them. He had heard everything the Viceroy had had to say, but it simply had not registered. For example, there was the Viceroy's long and famous General Orders Number One, which prescribed exactly what the human race was required to do in order to make their miserable little pebble of a planet fit to be occupied by the Viceroy's race. The celebrated Para. iv (c) of those orders read: It is contemplated that 50% of the human race will be required for maintenance duties under the occupation. Since the other 50% will not be adequate to the task of feeding the maintainers, it will be necessary to increase the adult, healthy human population as quickly as possible. Therefore no beer; therefore no drugs; therefore no time wasted on amusements; therefore children, children, children. It was the Viceroy's orders. And the penalty for failure to comply was a violet flare and bam. It had never occurred to Chesley that the flare might some day consume him. It simply didn't seem to matter. If it had been guaranteed that he would get it at a specific time, why, then, he might have paid some attention. But the danger was so indefinite that it seemed foolish to waste time on it. Others were not so placid. The old life was disintegrating. The mores of the world were changing every day—at least on paper; for what was permitted was compulsory, and nearly everything that was not compulsory was verboten. Artists were giving up their art ("non-essential") and musicians their music ("manpower-wasting") in order to go to work on a Viceroy's Project. It was like a great war effort. And yet there was none of the self-sacrifice, none of the shared resources that mark a people fighting a war. Everywhere there was springing up a shoddy second growth of new companies, new plants, that would somehow cash in on the great Projects. With the Viceroy creating money as he pleased, while governments stood by helpless, there was a fantastic spiral of inflation. The governments themselves were falling apart; no one would work for them. It paid off much better to be an agent of the Viceroy than to serve some possessor of minute authority like the American Government, the Russian, even the UN. And there was one universal solvent—money. On the first day of Chesley's employment in the V.G. he was offered a bribe. Berkeley Project Six Four Three had ordered a thousand bags of Portland cement; it was nearly half sand; the salesman grasped Chesley's hand anxiously and said, half pleading, half in contempt: "What's the difference, pal? A little sand isn't gonna hurt —saves putting the sand in later, right? Everybody's doing it." And when he took his hand away there was a thousand-dollar bill, wadded damply tight, left in Chesley's. Chesley walked out of there and made a little note in his book; that was the first rule of the V.G.; anyone offering a bribe was to be reported for punishment. But, somehow, that didn't seem to stop it. By the end of the second day he had been offered money to suppress a report on inferior steel alloy in fourteen thousand tons of I-beams; to help throw a contract to a firm that lacked plant, raw materials and employees; to change the wording of a bid specification so that a speculator could unload water-damaged organic chemicals, utterly worthless for any purpose. He was even bribed on general principles—because he was a member of the V.G., as a sort of general prophylaxis against any future illegal activities. Chesley took his notebook in hand and reported to the District Sub-Office. It was in a Project building—a spidery tripod a mile and a half high. Steel skeleton and blue-plastic frame, it rose on three thin legs, one planted firmly on lower Manhattan, one rooted in Staten Island, one plunging into the river off the Jersey piers. Chesley stepped into a glassy capsule at the base of the Manhattan leg and was blown by pneumatic force straight up the leg. It was a whirling, dizzying experience, but he could catch sight of the other Project buildings scattered across the land and sea—the giant bubbly dome over Astoria, Queens, with its revolving ruby lights; the pale, square monstrosity that floated in the ocean just off Coney Island; the sun glinting from the twenty enormous swimming pools the Viceroy had commanded all over New York and New Jersey. Some day the Projects, all of them, would be used by the Viceroy's people, for purposes that were far outside of human understanding. But for now they belonged to the V.G., six-foot humans occupying rooms scaled for a race of no fixed size or shape, where some doors were so tiny a man had to crawl through on his belly, some ceilings so high that the lights had to be swung at the end of twenty-foot cables. Chesley slid through a narrow elliptical door marked AREA COMMANDER, saluted the first man he saw and said: "Sir, I wish to speak to Captain Carsten." "Sit down, bud." The wind screamed and the overhead lights swung at the end of their long cables. Chesley took a seat on a curiously shallow bench at one end of the triangular room. It was full of members of the V.G., male and female, all in the blinding blue uniforms. They seemed to pay no attention to him—and even less attention to the TV repeaters that were scattered all over every room in the Project buildings, where every minute of every day the face of the Viceroy was in the screen ordering, exhorting, commanding his followers. Perhaps it was a recording, Chesley thought; although it seemed live, for at every twentieth word or so the Viceroy had to pause in what he was saying to glance at a memorandum handed him by a sweating human aide, or to stop, and close his eyes, and seem to concentrate for a second, while the faint halo flared around him. It was: "—no human who dares interfere with the occupation of"—pause, while he glanced at a slip—"this miserable little planet by"—pause, while he closed his eyes and the halo glowed bright—"the invincible race I represent will escape. No, not one! And if any"—pause for another slip from another messenger—"human is presumptuous enough"— pause, while the halo flared—"to attempt to thwart my plan for"— pause again; and words and pauses and words and ... Chesley stopped a girl in the blue uniform. "What's he doing?" he asked. She stared at him. "Oh, a rookie. That's how he blasts 'em, boy," she said, and bustled on. Chesley was very impressed. Imagine seeing the Viceroy in the actual act of execution! It didn't seem to be very difficult for him—and yet, Chesley thought, if you assume that one person out of a thousand needs execution every year, and that there are three billion persons alive on the Earth, those three million annual executions must occur at an average rate of—of— of, he finally computed, one every ten seconds or so, night, day, weekends and Sundays included. No wonder the Viceroy was harried! "You!" barked a plump old V.G. with a lieutenant's shoulder bars. "You want to see the Captain? Come on in." Chesley marched into an office with a soft and slanting floor and, keeping his balance with some difficulty, saluted, reported, and turned over his list of persons who had offered him bribes. Captain Carsten stared at him in frank incredulity. "They tried to bribe you?" he asked. "Yes, sir." "And you—you're reporting them to me?" "Yes, sir." "I see." Carsten shook his head slowly, as though it were impossible to believe. And, in fact, he was baffled. He tried to clear up the confusion in his own mind. "You mean to say," he began, "that these people all offered you bribes, that you accepted the money, that you have brought the money to me here as evidence, and that you are turning their names in for punishment?" "That's absolutely right, sir," Chesley said gratefully. He was very relieved; at first he had almost thought the captain didn't understand. "I see," said the captain again. He picked up the pile of bills and the list of would-be bribe-givers. "There's quite a respectable sum here, Chesley," he said warmly. "And it requires a great deal of fortitude to resist keeping it. I must commend you." "Thank you very much, sir!" Chesley felt the stirrings of pleasure in his tranquil little heart. "Shall I keep them under observation?" "Eh? Keep who?" "The people on the list, sir." "Oh." The captain pursed his lips. "No," he said, "that won't be necessary. I'll take over, Chesley. I see that you have much more uncommon abilities than I had suspected, so that I think perhaps you should be transferred to—to a more advanced position." He nodded briskly, wadded up the money and put it in his pocket. "I'll keep the, uh, evidence. Pending the proper time, of course. Now, Chesley, dismissed!" Chesley marched out, feeling quite good—until a couple of days later, when he made another routine check and came across the Portland cement salesman. "You?" Chesley said, astonished. "But I thought—" "You thought what, pal?" the salesman snarled. "I thought—" Chesley had been going to say that he'd thought the salesman would long since have passed on, accompanied by a violet flare and a bam. But obviously that hadn't happened, and he floundered. "Ah," snarled the salesman, "you give me a pain. A thousand bucks wasn't enough for you, huh? You had to pass me on to Carsten, huh? What do you think I was bothering with you for? Just because I couldn't afford his prices—and now he's got me down for a weekly payoff, and, believe me, it isn't any measly grand. Get out of here, you! I don't have to bother with you small-timers any more—now that I'm paying for real protection, I'm going to get it!" Truly, thought Chesley in his analytical way, the V.G. was a strange and educational organization. But time went on, and Chesley's ears slowly dried, and it was only a matter of months before he had his own list, and more than five hundred lesser V.G.s under him to help in the collections. For the mortality rate among the human population itself was high, but among that segment of the race that had joined the V.G., it was fabulous. Nearly one execution out of ten, Chesley discovered with interest, was of a V.G.—V.G. caught conspiring to defraud, V.G. caught suborning forbidden research, V.G. under the influence of alcohol, V.G.—more often than any of these—the victim of a de sire for advancement on the part of one of his subordinates. For if mortality was rapid, so was advancement. It was Major Chesley now, and the old apartment up the block from Mrs. Morgenstern was only a memory; the Chesleys lived in a penthouse over a pagoda-shaped Project of orange crystal. The Viceroy could have blotted out his enemies en masse only at the cost of blotting out the human race, and forfeiting the work he wanted done. For his own sake, he had to ferret out hostile groups and individuals and destroy them without destroying too many of the others at the same time. Hence, he needed his international army, the V.G. But the army was shot through with corruption. Men who spied on their fellow men for the sake of an inhuman ruler had little of ordinary human feelings. They robbed and reported for annihilation with relative impunity—at least until they aroused the opposition of other V.G. men. Then they themselves were robbed and reported. And another violet flare and bam. Captain Carsten—now Colonel Carsten—got it one fine day. Major Morgenstern—now General Morgenstern—found out he was on a marshal's list, and hanged himself in panic. Major Chesley watched and profited; he made it a point never, never to interfere with an other V.G. man, at least one of superior rank. And so, when the Viceroy at last was impelled to act in enormous wholesale fashion, Major Chesley ceased being even a major; there was a renewed loyalty check and a doubling of the hidden microphones; Major Chesley became Generalissimo Chesley. The long procession of stepping stones, it seemed, had finally led to a goal. IV Chesley's wife cooed: "Arthur, you look so handsome! Just think, my Arthur's a generalissimo! Oh, if only Elsie Morgenstern's husband down the block could see you now!" "I have to go," Chesley said. "Oh, don't go yet, Arthur. Let me look at you. My, blue is your color. And those comets on your shoulder—Arthur, you're handsomer than you were when we were married." She giggled. Chesley said uneasily, "Dear, I must go. The Viceroy himself has sent for me." "The Viceroy?" His wife's mouth went wide with surprise—yes, and with fright. "Arthur! You mean—" "I only know that he sent for me," Chesley said. "But that's what happened with Elsie Morgenstern's husband, Arthur! The Viceroy sent for him, and Elsie said the poor man knew it was—And he just couldn't bear the suspense, knowing that he was on somebody's list, so he— Arthur, please don't go. Stay here, Arthur! Oh, Arthur, I knew all this would end up with some kind of terrible thing. How can I tell my mother if you— And think of the disgrace! My own husband blasted by the Viceroy for disloyalty! I won't be able to hold up my head. Just when the other ladies were—Arthur, come back here!" But it wasn't his death sentence that was being passed after all. Chesley had been pretty sure it wasn't that—though there were uneasy moments, waiting in the purplish gloom of the Viceroy's own outer office, when he would have given his blue V.G. uniform and his generalissimo's comets cheerfully for the privilege of once again being an ordinary common citizen in an ordinary world. But it wasn't bad news; it was good; how good, Chesley would never have dared to guess. The Viceroy's personal aide-de-camp, white-faced, sweating, let Chesley in. Chesley walked past the man and thought objectively how terrible it must be to be exposed continually to the ultimate wrath of the Viceroy—and how short the life expectancy of a personal aide had come to be, with the average duration in the post running to not much over a week. But then he was in the presence of the Viceroy, and he had no time to think of things concerning mere humans. And yet—the Viceroy himself, even, had an aura of humanity that was new and strange. It wasn't that he looked human. His features were twice the size of a man's, and utterly blank, carved out of heartless granite, as though it weren't worth the trouble to him of assuming an expression. It wasn't as though he sounded human —his voice had a curious mechanical harshness, more so than ever before, as though he had not bothered to dress it up with earthly intonations and overtones. But the Viceroy was . . . upset. That was the only word to express it. He had blazed with angry power during the reorganization of the V.G. that brought Chesley his comets, and the blaze was still smoldering. There was worry and hatred in his bearing—hatred at the stupid illogic of this mindless human race that was incapable of resisting him, and yet ran the highest risks of annihilation for the sake of making a few filthy dollars. There was passion surrounding the Viceroy; and Chesley was very nearly afraid. He saw death pervading the very air in front of him, death and annihilation. And yet it was not directed at Chesley, for what the Viceroy said, when he took time at last from reading memos and pausing to make the effort of will that, somewhere on the face of the earth, blasted another enemy with a violet flare, was: "You once refused a bribe." Chesley had to think back—it was that hard to remember. Then he recalled the scene in Captain Carsten's office, and realized that even there the Viceroy had had his hidden microphones or his spies. He said, "That's true." The Viceroy went on in a harsh and somber voice: "You no longer refuse them." "That's true too," admitted Chesley. "Yes," said the Viceroy, and was silent for a moment while he read a memo and squelched another enemy. Then he said: "You need not refuse bribes. But do not fail to be logical. From this moment, you are chief of all my Guard." And that was the end of the interview. A human dictator might have appealed for personal loyalty. What the Viceroy wanted, Chesley realized, was clarity of view—the realization that Chesley's own selfish interests were best served by doing whatever he could for his master, the Viceroy. Chesley left, understanding the Viceroy's difficulty. The Viceroy had no time. He had to be all over the world, punishing and searching out offenders. And for all his superior power, he was baffled and enraged when human beings risked his anger for—to him—stupid reasons. Chesley didn't know much about fear from personal experience, since his mind had never worked that way. But he had learned to recognize its objective symptoms in others: Baffled rage, extending outward; puzzlement; inability to comprehend the nature of a danger. In other words—what the Viceroy himself was now demonstrating. Chesley, being no coward, was also no hero. He had never thought of himself as courageous, and yet, the very next week, he did a courageous thing. A report came to his desk: Captain-General Gorminster, aide-de-camp to the Viceroy, has accepted a bribe for destroying a memorandum relating to the disloyalty of five members of the San Diego Area Command. Chesley's job was to initial it, return it for filing, and inform the Viceroy of its contents—directly, since the man accused was the Viceroy's own aide-de-camp. It was Gorminster's death sentence. Chesley did nothing of the kind. He initialed it, thought it over, and tucked it in a pocket. And two days later, he found the Viceroy's aide-de-camp dragging himself, shaking, up the long humped ramp that led toward the purplish recesses of the headquarters. Chesley stopped him. "General Gorminster," he said, "take a look at this, will you?" Gorminster glanced at it impatiently, then snatched it from Chesley's hands, read it and reread it, stared for a horrified moment at Chesley, and seemed about to faint. "I haven't turned it in," said Chesley. Gorminster only stared. He was a pitiable sight, no courage left to him and no strength. "And I am not going to," Chesley went on. "I think it is an unjust accusation." "Oh, thank you," gasped Gorminster. "I only want you to remember," said Chesley, "that I have helped you. I may need help myself sometime." "I understand," said Gorminster after a moment, and then he smiled. It was a workable arrangement—the supreme commander of the V.G. and the Viceroy's personal aide, working hand-in-glove; they could protect each other indefinitely. Chesley returned to his work feeling more comfortable than he had for some time. That was the sole act of disloyalty of which he was guilty. He made up for it by intensifying his investigation of the rest of the Viceregal Guard. Half the members of the V.G. were always busy investigating the other half, and each half was likewise split into quarters that investigated each other. Only rarely did Chesley report directly that any individual or group was disloyal, for he had seen enough to know that the most dangerous thing a man in his uncertainly powerful position could do was to make enemies. But he saw to it that the right members of the warring factions discovered the right damning evidence on their opponents. And then it was only a matter of piously transmitting the initialed reports; and the Viceroy himself blasted the offenders, and Chesley could wash his hands like any Pilate. He worked hard. Under the new regime, feeling for others was a luxury and only selfishness was a virtue. But selfishness precluded any genuine loyalty to a ruler who ruled by fear alone. Thus greed arose to combat fear and to nullify it; and disloyalty was inevitable. The task of investigating and reporting was endless and exhausting. Chesley began to feel it draining him after the first few days in his mighty new office. And yet, he wondered, what must it be for the Viceroy? He spent more and more time with that inhuman tyrant, and saw that humanity—that is, worry and doubt—were burgeon- ing in him like toadstools after a spring rain. Chesley could trust no one fully. The Viceroy could trust no one at all. The Viceroy spent all his time doing what Chesley did—but more quickly, more efficiently, without human limitations on his ability to think and act. And without rest. Chesley began to sense that something might happen—something that the Viceroy feared. But it would not happen, he knew, of itself. He thought, and remembered, and was careful. It must be made to happen—and he must arrange it. He continued with his work. The number of reports he sent in increased. He discovered disloyalty everywhere It was only a matter of time until someone somehow reported Chesley himself. And one day when Captain-General Gorminster, in a tottering panic, hurried to Chesley's side with a summons from the Viceroy himself—and dared everything to whisper, "It's the Ottawa Area Chief! He's reported you direct—I couldn't stop it!"—Chesley knew that the time had come. There was the Viceroy, twelve feet tall, shimmering with a golden fire-flecked glow. He was shouting into a television scanner connected with Sydney, Australia; in his hand was a sheaf of denunciations; he paused, spoke, paused again in the moments while Chesley was waiting, and each pause was an execution. The Viceroy spoke, his face granite: "You are a spy in my Guard." Chesley felt his stomach knotted into hard lumps and wondered what he had eaten that disagreed with him so; he found that he was sweating and was astonished, for it was not warm. He said: "I have followed your orders. I have acted loyally." "Loyally!" Chesley felt the seething of inhuman rage that radiated out from the Viceroy. "You obeyed because you knew obedience would harm me!" cried the Viceroy. "Yours is a race of worms! You know no reason and no logic!" It was true. The realization hit Chesley and hit him hard: All of his obedience, all of his following orders, had had the effect of damaging the Viceroy's cause. For the Viceroy's orders had been to root out disloyalty and destroy it; and the nature of the Viceregal Guard was that disloyalty had to be its hallmark, treachery its sign. What other sort of person would join the V.G.? And so, the more the officers spied and reported, the weaker the organization became. Blue-uniformed turncoats remained turncoats. The task of rooting out corruption from the Guard was impossible—by definition: for corruption was its source and spawning ground. And knowing that, Chesley knew one more thing: He knew at last that he was afraid. He said: "You yourself created an illogical situation." The Viceroy stopped in mid-breath. Death was very near for Chesley, but at least the Viceroy was listening. Was it his imagination, or did the Viceroy seem to be swelling slightly—as though the strain of carrying a planet on his inhuman shoulders was beginning to tell? Chesley said, "You hoped to rule us by fear—but fear destroys you. When we are afraid, we act irrationally; and we are too many for you." "I shall destroy your filthy race!" "Oh," said Chesley, calm now, nodding, "yes, you will. You will destroy us, Viceroy. In fact, you are destroying us now. And what then? If you destroy us all, there will be no servants for your people—and then you will be punished." The giant figure wavered like smoke. It cried wordlessly—or in words that were not human; and then it said: "Stop!" "Why?" asked Chesley. "You will blast me anyhow—you can only do it once, you know. That's your basic error, Viceroy, you have only one punishment for any crime, so why should a man be content with a small crime? Might as well commit a large one. No, if you had been logical, you might have—" "Stop!" bawled the vast, inhuman voice, and the purple-lined room shook. "Stop, man!" He was swelling with anger, Chesley noted with a surgeon's detachment. Ah, what was the difference? He went on, finishing out his thought, confident that it would be the last thought he would have in this life: "And so, by failing to be logical, you have failed in your mission. It is you who are disloyal, Viceroy. You have betrayed your people. You can never prepare the Earth for their coming." "Disloyal?" boomed the enormous voice. Chesley nodded and closed his eyes. There was a pause And, even through his closed eyes, a violet flare— And a crash louder than anything Chesley had ever heard. This is dying, he thought; but then he opened his eyes and it was not. It was the Viceroy who had blasted himself; disloyalty had to be punished; there was only one punishment; logic required that it be administered. The Viceroy's broken body lay sprawled across the floor, shattered from within under the pressure of a storm of uncontrollable energy. It was not destroyed completely, as any human body would have been; and in death it was no longer human at all. There was plenty of money in the vaults of the Viceregal Guard, and plenty of time to take it and get away, before any other human dared approach the Viceroy's inner headquarters. Quickly home, quickly with his wife to the airport, quickly in a V.G. plane, with a pilot he could trust, flying south high and fast. And his wife was saying: "But Arthur, if the Viceroy's dead and the V.G. is going to be out of existence as soon as the people find out about it, then what will we do? You'll be out of a job, and— And if the rest of the race will be trying to lynch the V.G., like you say, then how will we be safe? Don't you ever think of me, Arthur? You can grow a mustache and change your name—but what about Mother? How will I ever dare— And why must we take that filthy trunk? I don't know what you've got in it, but I simply cannot abide the smell of it, and— Arthur! You're not paying attention!" Chesley said wearily, "Don't worry about it, dear. Look." He opened the briefcase and showed her the stacks of bills it contained. "But—but that's stealing!" she cried. He said, "It's my own money, honestly grafted. Besides, it won't be good for anything once the governments take over again. But meanwhile it will buy us a place to live, and a stock of food to see us through, and a laboratory." "A laboratory?" His wife looked as though she had at last realized her husband had gone utterly mad. "You mean—research? That stuff in the trunk?" He nodded. "Those are the fragments of the Viceroy's body. If I can find out what he was made of, I think I can find out how he was able to blast people—and then we'll be ready for the next Viceroy his race sends down. If they ever send another. We know that the blast works on them as well as on us—he proved that." He smiled, and pointed down to the palm-fringed airfield which they were circling for a landing. "Our new home," he said. There was much more that he could have said—for example, that when he had learned the secret of the Viceroy's blast he could, if he wished, rule the world as the Viceroy had; or that with a few other little items he had looted from the Viceroy's quarters they could be fabulously wealthy all the years of their lives. But it was not Chesley's way to be communicative, particularly with his wife; and all that he did say was: "So you see? That job was a stepping stone, after all." A FEAST OF DEMONS I That year we were all Romans, and I have to tell you that I look awful in a toga and short sword, but not nearly as awful as the Greek. You go to one of the big schools and naturally you turn out for the Class Reunion. Why not? There's money there, and good fellowship, and money, and the chance of a busi­ness contact that will do you some good. And money. Well, I wasn't that fortunate—and you can say that again because it's the story of my life: I wasn't that fortunate. I didn't go to Harvard, Princeton or Yale. I didn't even go to Columbia, U.C.L.A. or the University of Chicago. What I went to was Old Ugly. Don't lie to me—you never heard of Old Ugly, not even if I tell you it's Oglethorpe A. & M. There were fifty-eight of us in my graduating class—that's 1940—and exactly thirty turned up for the tenth reunion. Wouldn't that turn your stomach? Only thirty Old Grads with enough loyalty and school feeling to show up for that tenth reunion and parade around in Roman togas and drink themselves silly and renew old school ties. And, out of that thirty, the ones that we all really wanted to sec for sentimental reasons—I refer to Feinbarger of Feinbarger Shipping, Schroop of the S.S.K. Studios in Hollywood, Dixon of the National City Bank and so on—they didn't show up at all. It was terribly disappointing to all of us, especially to me. In fact, at the feast that evening, I found myself sitting next to El Greco. There simply wasn't anyone else there. You understand that I don't refer to that Spanish painter—I be­lieve he's dead, as a matter of fact. I mean Theohald Greco, the one we called the Greek. I introduced myself and he looked at me blearily through thick glasses. "Hampstead? Hampstead?" "Virgil Hampstead," I reminded him. "You remember me. Old Virgie." He said, "Sure. Any more of that stuff left in the bottle; Old Virgie?" I poured for him. It was my impression, later borne out by evidence, that he was not accustomed to drinking. I said, "It's sure great to see all the fellows again, isn't it? Say, look at Fudge Detweiler there! Ever see anything so comical as the lampshade he's wearing for a hat?" "Just pass me the bottle, will you?" Greco requested. "Ole Virgie, I mean." "Still in research and that sort of thing?" I asked. "You always were a brain, Greek. I can't tell you how much I've envied you creative fellows. I'm in sales myself. Got a little territory right here that's a mint, Greek. A mint. If I only knee where I could lay my hands on a little capital to expand the way—But I won't bore you with shop talk. What's your line these days?" "I'm in transmutation," he said clearly, and passed out face down on the table. Now nobody ever called me a dope—other things, yes, but not a dope. I knew what transmutation meant. Lead into gold, tin into platinum, all that line of goodies. And accordingly the next morning, after a certain amount of Bromo and black coffee, I asked around the campus and found out that Greco had a place of his own not far from the campus. That explained why he'd turned up for the reunion. I'd been wondering. I borrowed cab fare from Old Pudge Detweiler and headed for the address I'd been given. It wasn't a home. It was a beat-up factory and it had a sign over the door: T. GRECO Plant Foods & Organic Supplies Since it was Sunday, nobody seemed to be there, but I pushed open the door. It wasn't locked. I heard something from the basement, so I walked down a flight of steps and looked out into a rather smelly laboratory. There was the Greek. Tall, thin, wide-eyed and staggering, he appeared to be chasing butterflies. I cleared my throat, but he didn't hear me. He was racing around the laboratory, gasping and muttering to himself, sweeping at empty air with what looked to me like an electric toaster on a stick. I looked again and, no, it wasn't an electric toaster, but exactly what it was defied me. It appeared to have a recording scale on the side of it, with a needle that flickered wildly. I couldn't see what he was chasing. The fact was that, as far as I could see, he wasn't chasing anything at all. You have to get the picture: Here was Greco, racing around with one eye on the scale and one eye on thin air; he kept bumping into things, and every now and then he'd stop, and stare around at the gadgets on the lab benches, and maybe he'd throw a switch or turn a dial, and then he'd be off again. He kept it up for ten minutes and, to tell you the truth, I began to wish that I'd made some better use of Pudge Det­weiler's cab fare. The Greek looked as though he'd flipped, nothing less. But there I was. So I waited. And by and by he seemed to get whatever it was he was looking for and he stopped, breathing heavily. I said, "Hi there, Greek." He looked up sharply. "Oh," he said, "Old Virgie." He slumped back against a table, trying to catch his breath. "The little devils," he panted. "They must have thought they'd got away that time. But I fixed them!" "Sure you did," I said. "You bet you did. Mind if I come in?" He shrugged. Ignoring me, he put down the toaster on a stick, flipped some switches and stood up. A whining sound dwindled and disappeared; some flickering lights went out. Others remained on, but he seemed to feel that, whatever it was he was doing, it didn't require his attention now. In his own good time, he came over and we shook hands. I said appreciatively, "Nice looking laboratory you have here, Greek. I don't know what the stuff is for, but it looks ex­pen—it looks very efficient." He grunted. "It is. Both. Expensive and efficient." I laughed. "Say," I said, "you were pretty loaded last night. Know what you told me you were doing here?" He looked up quickly. "What?" "You said you were in transmutation." I laughed harder than ever. He stared at me thoughtfully, and for a second 1 thought —well, I don't know what I thought, but I was worried. He had a lot of funny-looking things there, and his hand was stretching out toward one of them. But then he said, "Old Virgie." "That's me," I said eagerly, "I owe you an apology," he went on. "You do?" He nodded. "I'd forgotten," he confessed, ashamed. "I didn't remember until just this minute that you were the one I talked to in my senior year. My only confidant. And you've kept my secret all this time." I coughed. "It was nothing," I said largely. "Don't give it a thought." He nodded in appreciation. "That's just like you," he rem­inisced. "Ten years, eh? And you haven't breathed a word, have you?" "Not a word," I assured him, And it was no more than the truth. I hadn't said a word to anybody. I hadn't even said a word to myself. The fact of the matter was, I had completely forgotten what he was talking about. Kept his secret? I didn't even remember his secret. And it was driving me nuts! "I was sure of you," he said, suddenly thawing. "I knew I could trust you. I must have—otherwise I certainly wouldn't have told you, would I?" I smiled modestly. But inside I was fiercely cudgeling my brain. He said suddenly, "All right, Virgie. You're entitled to something for having kept faith. I tell you what I'll do—I'll let you in on what I'm doing here." All at once, the little muscles at the back of my neck began to tense up. He would do what? "Let me in" on something? It was an unpleasantly familiar phrase. I had used it myself all too often. "To begin with," said the Greek, focusing attentively on me, "you wonder, perhaps, what I was doing when you came—“ "I do," I said. He hesitated. "Certain—particles, which are of importance to my research, have a tendency to go free. I can keep them under a measure of control only by means of electrostatic forces, generated in this." He waved the thing that looked like a toaster on a stick. "And as for what they do—well, watch." El Greco began to putter with gleamy, glassy gadgets on one of the tables and I watched him with, I admit, a certain amount of suspicion. "What are you doing, Greek?" I asked pretty bluntly. He looked up. Surprisingly, I saw that the suspicion was mutual; he frowned and hesitated. Then he shook his head. "No," he said. "For a minute I—but I can trust you, can't I? The man who kept my secret for ten long years." "Of course," I said. "All right." He poured water out of a beaker into a U-shaped tube, open at both ends. "Watch," he said. "Remem­ber any of your college physics?" "The way things go, I haven't had much time to keep up with—" "All the better, all the better," he said. "Then you won't be able to steal anything." I caught my breath. "Now listen-" "No offense, Virgie," he said earnestly. "But this is a bil­lion dollars and— No matter. When it comes right down to cases, you could know as much as all those fool professors of ours put together and it still wouldn't help you steal a thing." He bobbed his head, smiled absently and went back to his gleamy gadgets. I tell you, I steamed. That settled it, as far as I was concerned. There was simply no excuse for such unjus­tified insults to my character. I certainly had no intention of attempting to take any unfair advantage, but if he was going to act that way . . . He was asking for it. Actually and literally asking for it. He rapped sharply on the U-tube with a glass stirring rod, seeking my attention. "I'm watching," I told him, very amiable now that he'd made up my mind for me. "Good. Now," he said, "you know what I do here in the plant?" "Why—you make fertilizer. It says so on the sign." "Ha! No," he said. "That is a blind. What I do is, I sep­arate optical isomers." "That's very nice," I said warmly. "I'm glad to hear it, Greek." "Shut up," he retorted unexpectedly. "You don't have the foggiest notion of what an optical isomer is and you know it. But try and think. This isn't physics; it's organic chemistry. There are compounds that exist in two forms—apparently identical in all respects, except that one is the mirror image of the other. Like right-hand and left-hand gloves; one is the other, turned backwards. You understand so far?" "Of course," I said. He looked at me thoughtfully, then shrugged. "No matter. They're called d- and l-isomers—d for dextro, l for levo; right and left, you see. And although they're identical except for being mirror-reversed, it so happens that sometimes one isomer is worth much more than the other." "I see that," I said. "I thought you would. Well, they can be separated—but it's expensive. Not my way, though. My way is quick and simple. I use demons." "Oh, now, Greek. Really." He said in a weary tone. "Don't talk, Virgie. Just listen. It won't tire you so much. But bear in mind that this is simply the most trifling application of my discovery. I could use it for separating U-235 from U-238 just as easily. In fact, I already--" He stopped in mid-sentence, cocked his head, looked at me and backtracked. "Never mind that. But you know what a Maxwell demon is?" "No." "Good for you, Virgie. Good for you!" he applauded. "I knew I'd get the truth out of you if I waited long enough." Another ambiguous remark, I thought to myself. "But you surely know the second law of thermodynamics." "Surely." "I thought you'd say that," he said gravely. "So then you know that if you put an ice cube in a glass of warm water, for instance, the ice melts, the water cools, and you get a glass with no ice but with all the water lowered in tempera­ture. Right? And it's a one-way process. That is, you can't start with a glass of cool water and, hocus-pocus, get it to separate into warm water and ice cube, right?" "Naturally," I said, "for heaven's sake. I mean that's silly." "Very silly," he agreed. "You know it yourself, eh? So watch." He didn't say hocus-pocus. But he did adjust something on one of his gadgets. There was a faint whine and a gurgling spluttering sound, like fat sparks climbing between spreading electrodes in a Frankenstein movie. The water began to steam faintly. But only at one end! That end was steam; the other was—was— It was ice. A thin skin formed rapidly, grew thicker; the other open end of the U-tube began to bubble violently. Ice at one end, steam at the other. Silly? But I was seeing it! I must say, however, that at the time I didn't really know that that was all I saw. The reason for this is that Pudge Detweiler came groaning down the steps to the laboratory just then. "Ah, Greek," he wheezed. "Ah, Virgie. I wanted to talk to you before I left." He came into the room and, panting, cased himself into a chair, a tired hippopotamus with a hang-over. "What did you want to talk to me about?" Greco de­manded. "You?" Pudge's glance wandered around the room; it was a look of amused distaste, the look of a grown man observing the smudgy mud play of children. "Oh, not you, Greek. I wanted to talk to Virgie. That sales territory you mentioned, Virgie. I've been thinking. I don't know if you're aware of it, but when my father passed away last winter, he left me—well, with certain responsibilities. And it occurred to me that you might be willing to let me invest some of the—" I didn't even let him finish. I had him out of there so fast, we didn't even have a chance to say good-by to Greco. And all that stuff about demons and hot-and-cold water and so on, it all went out of my head as though it had never been. Old Pudge Detweiler! How was I to know that his father had left him thirty thousand dollars in one attractive lump of cash! II Well, there were business reverses. Due to the reverses, I was forced to miss the next few reunions. But I had a lot of time to think and study, in between times at the farm and the shop where we stamped out license plates for the state. When I got out, I began looking for El Greco. I spent six months at it, and I didn't have any luck at all. El Greco had moved his laboratory and left no forwarding address. But I wanted to find him. I wanted it so badly, I could taste it, because I had begun to have some idea of what he was talking about, and so I kept on looking. I never did find him, though. He found me. He came walking in on me in a shabby little hotel room, and I hardly recognized him, he looked so prosperous and healthy. "You're looking just great, Greek," I said enthusiastically, seeing it was true. The years hadn't added a pound or a wrin­kle—just the reverse, in fact. "You're not looking so bad yourself," he said, and gazed at me sharply. "Especially for a man not long out of prison." "Oh." I cleared my throat. "You know about that." "I heard that Pudge Detweiler prosecuted." "I see." I got up and began uncluttering a chair. "Well," I said, "it's certainly good to— How did you find me?" "Detectives. Money buys a lot of help. I've got a lot of money." "Oh." I cleared my throat again. Greco looked at me, nodding thoughtfully to himself. There was one good thing; maybe he knew about my trouble with Pudge, but he also had gone out of his way to find me. So he wanted something out of me. He said suddenly, "Virgie, you were a damned fool." "I was," I admitted honestly. "Worse than you know. But I am no longer. Greek, old boy, all this stuff you told me about those demons got me interested. I had plenty of time for reading in prison. You won't find me as ignorant as I was the last time we talked." He laughed sourly. "That's a hot one. Four years of college leave you as ignorant as the day you went in, but a cou­ple years of jail make you an educated man." "Also a reformed one." He said mildly, "Not too reformed, I hope." "Crime doesn't pay—except when it's within the law. That's the chief thing I learned." "Even then it doesn't pay," he said moodily. "Except in money, of course. But what's the use of money?" There wasn't anything to say to that. I said, probing deli­cately, "I figured you were loaded. If you can use your de­mons to separate U-235 from U-238, you can use them for separating gold from sea water. You can use them for damn near anything." "Damn near," he concurred. "Virgie, you may be of some help to me. Obviously you've been reading up on Maxwell." "Obviously." It was the simple truth. I had got a lot of use out of the prison library—even to the point of learning all there was to learn about Clerk Maxwell, one of the greatest of physicists, and his little demons. I had rehearsed it thoroughly for El Greco. "Suppose," I said, "that you had a little compartment inside a pipe of flowing gas or liquid. That's what Maxwell said. Suppose the compartment had a little door that allowed molecules to enter or leave. You station a demon—that's what Maxie called them himself—at the door. The demon sees a hot molecule coming, he opens the door. He sees a cold one, he closes it. By and by, just like that, all the hot molecules are on one side of the door, all the cold ones—the slow ones, that is—on the other. Steam on one side, ice on the other, that's what it comes down to." "That was what you saw with your own eyes," Theobald Greco reminded me. "I admit it," I said. "And I admit I didn't understand. But I do now." I understood plenty. Separate isotopes—separate elements, for that matter. Let your demon open the door to platinum, close it to lead. He could make you rich in no time. He had, in fact, done just that for Greco. Greco said, "Here. First installment." He pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to me. It was metallic—about the size of a penny slot-machine bar of chocolate, if you remember back that far. It gleamed and it glittered. And it was ruddy yellow in color. "What's that?" I asked. "Gold," he said. "Keep it, Virgie. It came out of sea water, like you said. Call it the down payment on your salary." I hefted it. I bit it. I said, "By the way, speaking of salary ..." "Whatever you like," he said wearily. "A million dollars a year? Why not?" "Why not?" I echoed, a little dazed. And then I just sat there listening, while he talked. What else was there to do? I won't even say that I was listening, at least not with the very fullest of attention, because that thought of a million dollars a year kept coming between me and his words. But I got the picture. The possibilities were endless. And how well I knew it! Gold from the sea, sure. But energy—free energy—it was there for the taking. From the molecules of the air, for instance. Refrigerators could be cooled, boilers could get up steam, homes could be heated, forges could be fired—and all without fuel. Planes could fly through the air without a drop of gasoline in their tanks. Anything. A million dollars a year ... And it was only the beginning. I came to. "What?" He was looking at me. He repeated patiently, "The police are looking for me." I stared. "You?" "Did you hear about Grand Rapids?" I thought. "Oh— Wait. A fire. A big one. And that was you?" "Not me. My demons. Maxwell demons—or Greco de­mons, they should be called. He talked about them; I use them. When they're not using me. This time, they burned down half the city." "I remember now," I said. The papers had been full of it. "They got loose," he said grimly. "But that's not the worst. You'll have to earn your million a year, Virgie." "What do you mean, they got loose?" He shrugged. "Controls aren't perfect. Sometimes the de­mons escape. I can't help it." "How do you control them in the first place?" He sighed. "It isn't really what you would call controls," he said. "It's just the best I can do to keep them from spread­ing.” "But—you said sometimes you separate metals, sometimes you get energy. How do the demons know which you want them to do, if you say you can't control them?" "How do you make an apple tree understand whether you want it to grow Baldwins or Macintoshes?" I gawked at him. "Why—but you don't, Greek! I mean it's either one or the other!" "Just so with demons! You're not so stupid after all, are you? It's like improving the breed of dogs. You take a com­mon ancestral mutt, and generations later you can develop an Airedale, a dachshund or a Spitz. How? By selection. My demon entities grow, they split, the new entities adapt themselves to new conditions. There's a process of evolution. I help it along, that's all." He took the little slab of gold from me, brooding. Abruptly he hurled it at the wall. "Gold!" he cried wildly. "But who wants it? 1 need help, Virgie! If gold will buy it from you, I'll pay! But I'm desperate. You'd be desperate too, with nothing ahead but a sordid, demeaning death from young age and a—" I interrupted him. "What's that?" It was a nearby raucous hooting, loud and mournful. Greco stopped in mid-sentence, listening like a hunted creature. "My room," he whispered. "All my equipment—on the floor above—" I stepped hack, a little worried. He was a strange man, skinny and tall and wild-eyed. I was glad he was so thin; if he'd been built solidly in proportion to his height, just then he would have worried me, with those staring, frightened eyes and that crazy way of talking. But I didn't have time to worry, in any case. Footsteps were thundering in the halls. Distant voices shouted to each other. The hoot came again. "The fire whistle!" Greco bayed. "The hotel's on fire!" He leaped out of my room into the corridor. I followed. There was a smell of burning—not autumn leaves or paper; it was a chemical-burning smell, a leather-burning smell, a henyard-on-fire smell. It reeked of an assort­ment of things, gunpowder and charred feathers, the choking soot of burning oil, the crisp tang of a wood fire. It was, I thought for a second, perhaps the typical smell of a hotel on fire, but in that I was wrong. "Demons!" yelled Greco, and a bellhop, hurrying by, paused to look at us queerly. Greco sped for the stairs and up them. I followed. It was Greco's room that was ablaze—he made that clear, trying to get into it. But he couldn't. Black smoke billowed out of it, and orange flame. The night manager's water bucket was going to make no headway against that. I retreated. But Greco plunged ahead, his face white and scary. I stopped at the head of the stairs. The flames drove Greco off, but he tried again. They drove him off again, and this time for good. He stumbled toward me. "Out! It's hopeless!" He turned, stared blindly at the hotel employees with their chain of buckets. "You! What do you think you're doing? That's—" He stopped, wetting his lips. "That's a gasoline fire," he lied, "and there's dynamite in my luggage. Clear the hotel, you hear me?" It was, as I say, a lie. But it got the hotel cleared out. And then— It might as well have been gasoline and dynamite. There was a purplish flash and a muttering boom, and the whole roof of the four-story building lifted off. I caught his arm. "Let's get out of here," I said. He looked at me blindly. I'd swear he didn't know me. His eyes were tortured, "Too late!" he croaked. "Too late! They're free again!" So I went to work for Theobald Greco—in his laboratory in Southern California, where we replaced some of the things that had been destroyed. And one morning I woke up and found my hair was white. I cried, "Greek!" Minnie came running in. I don't believe I told you about Minnie. She was Greco's idea of the perfect laboratory assistant —stupid, old, worthless to the world and without visible kin. She came in and stared and set up a cackling that would wake the dead. "Mister Hampstead!" she chortled. "My, but ain't you a sight!" "Where's Greco?" I demanded, and pushed her out of my way. In pajamas and bathrobe, I stalked down the stairs and into the room that had once been a kitchen and now was Greco's laboratory. "Look!" I yelled. "What about this?" He turned to look at me. After a long moment, he shook his head. "I was afraid of that," he mumbled. "You were a towhead as a kid, weren't you? And now you're a towhead again." "But my hair, Greek! It's turned white." "Not white," he corrected despondently. "Yellow. It's re­verted to youth—overnight, the way it happens sometimes. I warned you, Virgie. I told you there were dangers. Now you know. Because—" He hesitated, looked at me, then looked away. "Because," he said, "you're getting younger, just like me. If we don't get this thing straightened out, you're going to die of young age yourself." I stared at him. "You said that before, about yourself. I thought you'd just tongue-twisted. But you really mean—" "Sit down," he ordered. "Virgie, I told you that you were looking younger. It wasn't just looks. It's the demons—and not just you and me, but a lot of people. First Grand Rapids. Then when the hotel burned. Plenty have been exposed—you more than most, I guess, ever since the day you walked into my lab and I was trying to recapture some that had got away. Well, I don't guess I recaptured them all." "You mean I—" He nodded. "Some of the demons make people younger. And you've got a colony of them in you." I swallowed and sat down. "You mean I'm going to get younger and younger, until finally I become a baby? And then —what then, Greek?" He shrugged. "How do I know? As me in another ten years. Look at me, Virgie!" he cried, suddenly loud. "How old do I look to you? Eighteen? Twenty?" It was the plain truth. He looked no more than that. Seeing him day by day, I wasn't conscious of change; remem­bering him from when we had gone to school, I thought of him as younger anyway. But he was forty, at the very least, and he didn't look old enough to vote. He said, "I've had demons inside of me for six years. It seems they're a bit choosy about where they'll live. They don't inhabit the whole body, just parts of it—heart, lungs, liver. Maybe bones. Maybe some of the glands—perhaps that's why I feel so chipper physically. But not my brain, or not yet. Fortunately." "Fortunately? But that's wrong, Greek! If your brain grew younger too—" "Fool! If I had a young brain, I'd forget everything I learned, like unrolling a tape backwards! That's the danger, Virgie, the immediate danger that's pressing me—that's why I needed help! Because if I ever forget, that's the end. Not just for me—for everybody; because there's no one else in the world who knows how to control these things at all. Except me—and you, if I can train you." "They're loose?" I felt my hair wonderingly. Still, it was not exactly a surprise. "How many?" He shrugged. "I have no idea. When they let the first batch of rabbits loose in Australia, did they have any idea how many there would be a couple of dozen generations later?" I whistled. Minnie popped her head in the door and gig­gled. I waved her away. "She could use some of your demons," I remarked. "Sometimes I think she has awfully young ideas, for a woman who's sixty if she's a day." Greco laughed crazily. "Minnie? She's been working for me for a year. And she was eighty-five when I hired her!" "I can't believe you!" "Then you'll have to start practicing right now," he said. It was tough, and no fooling; but I became convinced. It wasn't the million dollars a year any more. It was the thought of ending my days as a drooling, mewl­ing infant—or worse! To avert that, I was willing to work my brain to a shred. First it was a matter of learning—learning about the "strange particles." Ever hear of them? That's not my term —that's what the physicists call them. Positrons. The neu­trino. Pions and muons, plus and minus; the lambda and the antilambda. K particles, positive and negative, and anti-pro­tons and anti-neutrons and sigmas, positive, negative and neu­tral, and— Well, that's enough; but physics had come a long way since the classes I cut at Old Ugly, and there was a lot to catch up on. The thing was, some of the "strange particles" were stranger than even most physicists knew. Some—in combina­tion—were in fact Greco's demons. We bought animals—mice, rabbits, guinea pigs, even dogs. We infected the young with some of our own demons—that was simple enough, frighteningly simple; all we had to do was handle them a bit. And we watched what happened. They died—of young age. Some vital organ or another regressed to embryonic condi­tion, and they died—as Greco and I would die, if we didn't find the answer. As the whole world might die. Was it better than reverting past the embryo to the simple lifeless zygote? I couldn't decide. It was dying, all the same. When an embryonic heart or liver is called on to do a job for a mature organism, there is only one way out. Death. And after death—the demons went on; the dog we fed on the remains of the guinea pigs followed them to extinction in a matter of weeks, Minnie was an interesting case. She was going about her work with more energy every day, and I'll be blasted if I didn't catch her casting a lingering Marilyn Monroe sort of look at me when Greco's back was turned. "Shall we fire her?" I asked El Greco when I told him about it. "What for?" "She's disrupting the work!" "The work isn't worth a damn anyhow," he said moodily. "We're not getting anywhere, Virgie. If it was only a matter of smooth, predictable rates— But look at her. She's picking up speed! She's dropped five years in the past couple weeks." "She can stand to drop a lot more," I said, annoyed. He shrugged. "It depends on where. Her nose? It's short­ened to about a fifteen-year-old level now. Facial hair? That's mostly gone. Skin texture? Well, I suppose there's no such thing as a too-immature skin, I mean short of the embryonic capsule, but— Wait a minute." He was staring at the doorway. Minnie was standing there, simpering. "Come here!" he ordered in a voice like thunder. "Come here, you! Virgie, look at her nose!" I looked. "Ugh," I said, but more or less under my breath. "No, no!" cried Greco. "Virgie, don't you see her nose?" Foolish; of course I did. It was long, beaked— Then I saw. "It's growing longer," I whispered. "Right, my boy! Right! One curve at least has reversed itself. Do you see, Virgie?" I nodded. "She's—she's beginning to age again." "Better than that!" he crowed. "It's faster than normal aging, Virgie! There are aging demons loose too!" A breath of hope! But hope died. Sure, he was right—as far as it went. There were aging demons. We isolated them in some of our experimental animals. First we had to lure Minnie into standing still while Greco, swearing horribly, took a tissue sample; she didn't like that, but a hundred-dollar bonus con­verted her. Solid CO, froze the skin; snip, and a tiny flake of flesh came out of her nose at the point of Greco's scalpel; he put the sample of flesh through a few tricks and, at the end of the day, we tried it on some of our mice. They died. Well, it was gratifying, in a way—they died of old age. But die they did. It took three days to show an effect, but when it came, it was dramatic. These were young adult mice, in the full flush of their mousehood, but when these new demons got to work on them, they suddenly developed a frowsy, decrepit appearance that made them look like Bowery bums over whom Cinderella's good fairy had waved her wand in reverse. And two days later they were dead. "I think we've got something," said Greco thoughtfully; but I didn't think so, and I was right. Dead was dead. We could kill the animals by making them too young. We could kill the animals by making them too old. But keep them alive, once the demons were in them, we could not. Greco evolved a plan: Mix the two breeds of demons! Take an animal with the young-age demons already in it, then add a batch that worked in the other direction! For a while, it seemed to work--but only for a while. After a couple of weeks, one breed or the other would gain the upper hand. And the animals died. It was fast in mice, slow in humans. Minnie stayed alive. But the nose grew longer and facial hair reappeared; simulta­neously her complexion cleared, her posture straightened. And then, for the first time, we began to read the papers. STRANGE PLAGUE STRIKES ELGIN bawled the Chicago Tribune, and went on to tell how the suburbs around Elgin, Illinois, were heavily infested with a curious new malady, the symptoms of which were—youth. OAKLAND "BABY-SKIN" TOLL PASSES 10,000 blared the San Francisco Examiner. The New York News found thousands of cases in Brooklyn. A whole hospital in Dallas was evacuated to make room for victims of the new plague. And more. We looked at each other. "They're out in force," said Theobald Greco soberly. "And we don't have the cure." IV The world was topsy-turvy, and in the middle of it Minnie disappeared, talking hysterically about reporting us to the au­thorities. I don't mind admitting that I was worried. And the experiments were not progressing. The trouble seemed to be that the two varieties of demons—the aging and the youthing—were not compatible; if one took up residence in a given section of an organism, the other moved out. The more numerous destroyed the weaker; there was no balance. We tested it again and again in the mice and there was no doubt of it. So far, only the youthing demons were free. But when Minnie left us, it was only a matter of time. Our carriers—from Grand Rapids and from the hotel—had spread to Cali­fornia and the East Coast, to the North and to the South, throughout the country, perhaps by now through the world. It would be slower with the aging demons—there was only one of Minnie—but it would be equally sure. Greco began drinking heavily. "It's the end," he brooded. "We're licked." "No, Greek! We can't give up!" "We have to give up. The demons are loose in the Earth, Virgie! Those people in the headlines—they'll die of young age. So will others—even plants and animals, and bacteria, as the demons adapt to them. And then—why not? The air. The rocks, the ocean, even the Earth itself. Remember, the en­tropy of the Universe is supposed to tend to a maximum not only as a whole, but in each of its parts taken in isolation. The Earth's evolution—reversed. Spottily, and maybe that's worse, because some parts will evolve forward and others reverse, as is happening in my own body. Heaven help the world, Old Virgie! And not just the Earth, because what can stop them from spreading? To the Moon, the other planets—out of the Solar System, for that matter; to the other galaxies, even. Why not? And then—" "GRECO." An enormous tinny voice, more than human, filled the air. It came from outside. I jumped a foot. It sounded like the voice of a demon; then I got a grip on myself and understood. It was a loud-speaker, and it came from outside. "GRECO. WE KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE. COME ON OUTI" I had a stabbing sensation of familiarity. "The police!" I cried. "Greco, it's the police!" He looked at me wearily and shook his head. "No. More likely the F.B.I." Well, that was it. I got out—I didn't wait for permission from the Greek. I stopped at the door, and three searchlight beams hit me right in the eye. There were cars all around the laboratory, but I couldn't see them, not after those lights went on. I froze, stiff; wanting to make sure they understood (a) that I wasn't Greco and (b) that I didn't have a gun. They understood, all right. But they let me out. They put me in one of the cars, with a slim gray-eyed young man in a snap-brimmed hat sitting politely and alertly beside me, and they let me watch; and what happened after that wasn't funny at all. Greco didn't come out. They shouted at him over the loud-speaker and eventually he answered—his voice little and calm, coming out of nowhere, and all he said was, "Go away. I won't come out. I warn you, don't try to force your way in.” But he knew they wouldn't listen, of course. The didn't. They tried force. And he met it in novel ways with force of his own. The door had locked itself behind me; they got a fence post for a battering ram, and the post burst into flame. They found an I-beam from an old bed frame and tried that, and they were sorry they had done it; the thing melted in the middle, splat­tering them with hot drops of steel. The polite, alert young man beside me said, not so polite any more, "What's he doing, you? What sort of fancy tricks has he got in there?" "Demons," I said crazily, and that was a mistake, but what else was I to do? Try to explain Maxwell's equations to a Fed? They were trying again—there were fifteen or twenty of them, at least. They went for the windows, and the windows dissolved and rained cherry-red wet glass on them. They tried again through the open frames when the glass was gone, and the frames burst into fire around them, the blue smoke bleached white in the yellow of the flame and the white of the searchlights. They tried singly, by stealth; and they tried in clusters of a dozen, yelling. It was hopeless—hopeless for everybody, because they couldn't get in and the Greek could never, never get out; for go away they wouldn't. Not even when, with poof and a yel­low flare, the gas tank of one of the cars exploded. All that happened was that the man in the snap-brimmed hat and I leaped out, real quick; and then all the cars went up. But the men didn't leave. And then the guns began to go off without waiting for anyone to pull the trigger; and the barrels soft­ened and slumped and spattered to the ground. But the men still had bare hands, and they stayed. The Greek got wild—or lost control, it was hard to tell which. There was a sudden catastrophic whooshing roar and, wham, a tree took flame for roots. A giant old oak, fifty feet tall, I guess it had been there a couple of centuries, but Gre­co's demons changed all that; it took flame and shot whistling into the air, spouting flame and spark like a Roman candle. Maybe he thought it would scare them. Maybe it did. But it also made them mad. And they ran, all at once, every one of them but my personal friend, for the biggest, openest of the windows— And leaped back, cursing and yelling, beating out flames on their clothes. Jets of flame leaped out of every window and door. The old building seemed to bulge outward and go voom. In half a second, it was a single leaping tulip of fire. The firemen got there then, but it was a little late. Oh, they got Greco out—alive, even. But they didn't save a bit of the laboratory. It was the third fire in Greco's career, and the most dangerous—for where previously only a few of the youthing demons had escaped, now there were vast quantities of both sorts. It was the end of the world. I knew it. You know, I wish I had been right. I spent yesterday with Greco. He's married now and has a fine young son. They made an attractive family picture, the two healthy-looking adults, strong-featured, in the prime of life, and the wee tod­dler between them. The only things is--Greco's the toddler. He doesn't call himself Greco any more. Would you, the way the world is now? He has plenty of money stashed away —I do too, of course—not that money means very much these days. His brain hasn't been affected, just his body. He was lucky, I guess. Some of the demons hit the brain in some of their victims and— Well, it's pretty bad. Greco got the answer after a while. Both types of demons were loose in the world, and both, by and by, were in every individual. But they didn't kill each other off. One simply grew more rapidly, took over control, until it ran out of the kind of molecules it needed. Then the other took over. Then the first. Then the other again .. . Mice are short-lived. It's like balancing a needle on the end of your nose; there isn't enough space in a mouse's short span for balance, any more than there is in a needle's. But in a human life— Things are going to have to be worked out, though. It's bad enough that a family gets all mixed up the way Greco's is—he's on a descending curve, his kid is on an aging curve, and Minnie—did I tell you that it was Minnie he mar­ried?—has completed her second rejuvenation and is on the way back up again. But there are worse problems than that. For one thing, it isn't going to be too long before we run out of space. I don't mean time, I mean space. Living space. Because it's all very well that the human animal should now mature to grow alternately younger and older, over and over— But, damn it, how I wish that somebody once in a while would die! The Science Stage by WILLIAM MORRISON THE NEW SEASON HAS ONLY JUST got started on Broadway (for Broadway's year, unlike other chronologies, runs from September through May); and its science fiction and fantasy ventures, if any, must be covered here in later issues. But three of last season's fantasies, which survived the heat and drought of summer and are doubtless still playing when this appears, deserve some notice: two musicals which opened before this column was born, and VISIT TO A SMALL PLANET, already delightedly reviewed here (May, 1957) but worth further consideration because of an important change in cast—and because it was the only one of last season's several science fiction plays to score a success. The two musical comedies, DAMN YANKEES and LI'L ABNER, are in one respect realistic enough. They follow the tradition of all musicals in that whatever other elements go into their construction, the bricks of the house, if you will allow so prosaic a figure of speech, are girls ranging from pretty through beautiful to spectacular. Without well-exposed eye-filling females, there is no hope. At the present stage, LI'L ABNER has the advantage on this score. In addition to its chorus which includes some major assets, DAMN YANKEES has Devra Korwin, the latest of the Devil's Lolas. LI'L ABNER has not only Edith Adams, who is both talented and beautiful, but Julie Newman and Tina Louise, both of whom have to be seen to be believed, and even then are not quite credible. Enough, for the moment, of sex. DAMN YANKEES is a story of baseball, and relates the saga of a middle-aged fan who sells his soul to the usual purchaser to become a homer-hitting young fielder. As a player ages, his legs are supposed to go first. This is apparently not true about baseball comedies. After two years of performance, the dancing in DAMN YANKEES is lively and vigorous, although not the best in the world. Nor is the music, in my opinion, first class, despite the success of such numbers as Heart and Whatever Lola Wants. The one element in the show that gives it outstanding quality is its fantasy. That pact with the Devil opens the door to many amusing possibilities, and the show takes reasonably good advantage of them. It is the Devil who has made DAMN YANKEES a hit. I am afraid, however, that all his infernal powers will not keep it running much longer. Gwen Verdon, the original Lola, has long been replaced, and her replacement has been replaced. Devra Korwin, the present temptress, should be enough for any man, and frankly I cannot understand how the red-blooded young hero can resist her. If I were to make a pact with the Devil, I should hardly follow his uninspired example, and let my wife make of this what she will. But there have been other cast changes as well, and the production has been moved from one theatre to another, and somewhere during all the changes, the show has lost some of its soul. The hero may finally outwit his sinister opponent, but DAMN YANKEES itself appears doomed, at least until it is resurrected in the movies. LI'L ABNER is in a different position. Still less than a year old, it continues to rejoice in the presence of the outstanding females who were responsible for much early publicity. It has a clever book, such lively comedians as Stubby Kaye and Charlotte Rae, fine choreography by Michael Kidd, a perfect Li'l Abner in Peter Palmer, Edith Adams as Daisy Mae, and above all the spirit and the characters of Al Capp's comic strip. With memories of BLONDIE in mind, I found it difficult at first to believe that a show based on a comic strip could rise above the level of a six-year-old TV audience's comprehension. I am happy to admit that I was wrong. Like a team of well drilled football players, the LI'L ABNER company hits the opposition high and low at the same time and mows them down. An occasional stuffy objection has been raised to the plot's treatment of the possible disaster to Dogpatch. There is danger that Abner's home town may be wiped out by an atomic bomb, and the objectors do not consider this a trivial or amusing event. As the book treats it, there is amusement. But is the subject treated as trivial? The whole point of the show is that the atomic bomb is too serious a danger to be treated with evident seriousness (recall Arch Oboler's lugubrious disaster with NIGHT OF THE AUK, for instance). It is so serious, in fact, that the authors dared not treat it in any but an apparently frivolous way. And the combination of world-shaking subject with light, irreverent, witty lines and action makes for continuous sparkle and crackle throughout two fine acts. VISIT TO A SMALL PLANET, revisited, is almost as amusing as when I first saw it. The difference, I am afraid, is my own fault. For almost two acts I could not help retaining a memory of Eddie Mayehoff, who made of General Tom Powers a character of cosmic idiocy. Edward Andrews, who now plays the role, is fine, but he plays the General as stupid rather than idiotic (if you will permit me these fine distinctions in mental deficiency), and as an individual somehow deserving of sympathy. It took him two acts to wipe the recollections of Mr. Mayehoff out of my mind, and to make me appreciate his performance on its own merits. If you see the play without my initial disadvantage, you will find it wholly enjoyable. The play itself and the rest of the cast are as good as ever. Cyril Ritchard has received praise enough for his portrayal of the Visitor, but I cannot help adding another word. His acting is so beautifully stylized, his control of voice, facial expression, and gesture is so perfect, that you could very well imagine he received his training on another planet. His talents rise to their highest level in that wonderfully absurd scene where, with song and slogan, he tries to provide the psychological stimuli to change a prudent pacifist into a reckless warrior. The memory of his failure and unexpected success is something to treasure. Of the other fantastic and science fictional offerings of the season, you may recall that GOOD AS GOLD was smacked down, unfairly, it seemed to me, and SHINBONE ALLEY closed after a bitter struggle for life. LIGHT IN DARKNESS By WILLIAM MORRISON Kidnaped for Questioning by Martian Revolutionaries, Randall of the Interplanetary Police Works Out a Surprising Set of Answers THE medal that Sam Randall wore across his chest had been given him by the head of the Interplanetary Police himself, for the display of unusual courage in the line of duty, and it should have been a sort of amulet to ward off fear, but it wasn't. At the moment, Sam Randall was very much afraid. He could feel the round nose of the stubby atom-pistol in his side, and he could imagine what a slight pressure of a finger on the trigger could do. If the little Martian had looked tougher, more sure of himself, he wouldn't have minded. But to be held up by a man who looked as if a sneeze would scare the wits out of him, and cause a tightening of the tendon that would set off the gun . . . Sam Randall could be glad of one thing. He didn't look afraid. None of the passersby could guess that he wasn't having a pleasant conversation with the little blue man at his side, and that should have calmed the latter's tremors somewhat. He even managed to make his voice casual as he asked, "What's the big idea?" "Start walking," ordered the Martian. "Where to?" "Straight ahead. I'll tell you when to turn." Randall started to walk, and the shriveled blue man kept pace with him, the nose of the gun never leaving his side. Several pedestrians turned to look at them, and Randall hoped the Martian wasn't getting nervous. "Did I ever tell you that one," he began, "about the Irishman—" He could see the little man jump. "Skip it. Just keep your mouth shut, and walk." "It's monotonous just walking along without saying anything. It's a good story. It starts off—" He felt the gun digging into his side harder than ever, and he heard the voice, harsh and undoubtedly afraid. "Shut up!" His own voice died away. They walked along in silence. From time to time the little Martian gave him a curt direction. "Turn here," he would say, or, "Don't look back." Randall knew the territory they were covering, but the Martian didn't seem to care, and that made things look bad. It made it seem that Randall wouldn't have a chance to retrace his path, ever. JUST when he was beginning to feel tired, they reached a stretch of dark field. "Straight ahead," came the order. "But I can't see." "I can. Straight ahead." They moved on in the darkness. Randall was more uneasy than ever. He was certainly at a disadvantage now. The Martian could see by infra-red light, but he himself had to move blindly. "I ought to eat more carrots," said Randall to himself gloomily, but he knew that Vitamin A, or no Vitamin A, the Martian would still have the advantage of him. There was plenty of infra-red around, and to eyes that were sensitive to it, the whole field must seem brightly lighted. After a time, he heard noises in the distance. Soon he could distinguish the sound of people talking. "Hold it," said the Martian, and Randall stopped in time to keep from bumping into a space ship. Then he heard a port opening. He was urged ahead, and stumbled into the ship. The port clanged again. He had the feeling that people were looking him over. Then some one was giving directions in a voice he hadn't heard before, and the ship rose from the ground. He cursed softly to himself. He wished fervently that he could see. He couldn't even get a glimpse of the flames from the rocket tubes behind them. But after a time he could feel himself becoming light, and he knew that the ship was passing out of the field of Earth's gravity. When he was about half his usual weight, the artificial gravity went on, and from that time on, there was no further change. When a dim red light was finally switched on, it was quite unexpected. He stared around him, and whistled. There were five men, all Martians, and one girl. Naturally, it was at her that he looked first. She had at least one-half Earth blood, possibly more, and she was a beauty. He couldn't help that whistle of his. Any centenarian not a total wreck would probably have tried to whistle through toothless gums at seeing her. Her face was stern, but she wasn't scowling as the men were. Now that the atom-gun was out of his side, Randall felt the courage flowing back into him. "What's the big idea of snatching me?" he demanded. "I'm only a poor cop. I can't pay you enough of a ransom to make it worth your while." One of the Martians spoke. He was buck-toothed, which was unusual among Martians, and his teeth had an unpleasant resemblance to fangs. "You will please hand over the map." "Huh?" "I am not joking. I want the map you took from that Irishman." "I don't know what you're talking about." The man's eyes gleamed with anger. So there was an Irishman somehow involved in this, thought Randall, and realized suddenly why the man who had kidnaped him had been so upset by his attempt at humor. He had thought Randall was trying to be funny at his expense. The man spoke again. "Perhaps you have heard of me. I am Mungh Fahz." "Sure I've heard of you. You're a crook." And then, as an afterthought: "Among other things," added Randall. Mungh Fahz smiled, showing those fanglike teeth more clearly. "You realize then that when I ask for something, I am serious. Give it to me, please." "I can't give you what I haven't got." ANOTHER Martian interrupted. He was a little shorter than Mungh Fahz, and pleasanter looking, although no more pleasant in actuality. "Perhaps, Mungh Fahz, Mr. Randall would like to know why we are so sure the map is in his possession." A shrug. "You may tell him, Duorr, if it pleases you." "Last night," said Duorr, "you made an arrest." "Oh, that Irishman. He was only a drunk. Petty nice guy, too. I was sorry. I had to run him in." "He was not a drunk. He deliberately had himself arrested." Randall smiled. This was beginning to be funny. "Look, buddy," he replied. "Do you know what he talked to me about on his way to the station? About his dear old mother in good old Ireland, and how one Irishman was worth ten Martians, and again about his good old mother in dear old Ireland. He was as drunk as they come." "He was pretending," contradicted Duorr coldly. "No doubt he had been drunk before, and he knew how to talk. He was running away from us. He knew that it was only a matter of hours before we caught him, and he had himself arrested so that in the police station he might be out of danger." "What's that got to do with me?" "This afternoon he died. The map was not on him." Randall's eyes narrowed as he took in the meaning of the words. "You killed him. How?" "He died. We know that he did not give the map to the jailer. You were the only other person who saw him. Therefore he must have given it to you." "How do you know he didn't pass it over to some one else before I picked him up?" "We know. He was watched." Randall bit his lips. "What makes you so sure there was a map, anyway?" It was Mungh Fahz's turn to interrupt. "It will do us no harm to tell you," he said harshly. "Sean O'Brien was a prospector. He paid a visit to Tellus-B, the planetoid that's also 'known as Mock-Earth." Randall nodded. He had heard of this newly discovered planetoid that resembled Earth so closely in gravity and atmosphere. Unfortunately, it was too far away from the sun to be colonized as otherwise it might have been. There were probably no more than half a dozen people on it at any one time. "O'Brien discovered several deposits of mundite. The mineral has been sought for before, without success. O'Brien must have had methods of his own of finding the stuff. And once he found it, he must have made a map." "How do you know he found it?" "Because he became really drunk, and boasted of what he could do with it." "How do you know it was he that was talking, and not the liquor?" "He carried a tiny specimen of the mineral with him. Not enough to be dangerous, but enough to prove his story. We stole that and tested it to make sure. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the map. But the loss of the mundite warned him." "Excuse me," said Randall politely at this point. "What the devil is mundite?" "That," spat out Mungh Fahz, "is none of your business. Where is the map?" Randall shrugged, and Duorr snapped suddenly, "Enough of this." He didn't look pleasant any more. HE and Mungh Fahz exchanged glances, and a moment later a newcomer entered. At first Randall took this to be a man, but a second look made him realize it was a Phobian. This was a nerveless, almost brainless creature from Phobos, with a skin that was as near to steel in toughness as anything animate could be. Despite the smallness of the head, the Phobian was close to six feet in height, and Randall would stand no chance whatever in its hands. He knew that without having to be told. "We shall leave you two together," said Duorr softly. "Nonsense." Mungh Fahz seemed irritated at the other's stupidity. "There is no need to kill the fool. In fact, it would be distinctly inadvisable." Randall could see the girl's face drained of color, so that only the faintest blue tinge showed in the white skin. One-quarter Martian, he decided. And still the most beautiful girl he could remember having seen since the days when he was so young that all girls were beautiful. Mungh Fahz turned out the red light. Randall was in the dark now, although the others could still see clearly. Then Mungh Fahz spoke. Randall moved ahead blindly, and the next thing he knew, something like a steel rod hit him in the chest, making him gasp for breath. After that he wasn't quite sure what happened. Once or twice he could hear Mungh Fahz speak, giving directions to the Phobian, and later he was under the impression that he had heard the girl cry out. But most of his impressions came to him not through his sense of hearing, but through the senses of touch and pain. The Phobian moved as passionlessly as if it had been a robot, and with the same devastating results. After fifteen minute, Randall no longer knew he was being hit. It was then that the Phobian suspended operations. * * * Randall awoke to find himself in the dark again. But he was not alone. A voice spoke soothingly. "Drink this." He felt liquid slopping over his chin. "Give me some light," he muttered thickly. "I'm sorry. I forgot you couldn't see." The red light went on, and he perceived the girl standing beside him. She held out the cup, and he gulped down what was in it. It didn't make him feel any better. He tried to get to his feet, and found that he couldn't. She was watching him, her face rather pale, and Randall wondered, as he had wondered before, what she was doing with this bunch. "You'd better give it to them," she said. He managed to laugh. "You may think it strange, but I was telling the truth. I never saw that map." She was silent, and he had a long interval in which to stare at her. Her eyes were the only feature that were characteristically Martian. They were a deep purple, such as no Earth people had ever possessed. By this red light, they looked almost black. Randall spoke as if to himself. "I wonder what they'll try after this." "What do you mean?" "They've tried beating me up, but that didn't work. Now they're letting you see what you can do, but that isn't going to work, either. I'm curious to know what they'll think up next." She was flushing. "They didn't send me here. I came of my own accord. I—I thought you would need help." "And they didn't object?" "No. They've decided that they want you to stay alive for a while. They know where O'Brien landed on Tellus-B. They intend to retrace the trip that he made in discovering the mundite. That way they hope to make you betray yourself." RANDALL'S face wrinkled. "Betray myself ? I don't get it." "They're sure that you know what was on the map. When you come across a scene or a landmark that's familiar to you, they expect you to give the fact away." "I see. And what's to be your part in all this?" She flushed again. "I'm just an innocent observer. I'm Duorr's secretary. I have been for years." "Since when has a crook needed a secretary?" "He isn't a crook. He's a millionaire, and he's never accepted the fact that Mars has federated with the other planets. He believes in Mars First, and he has a plan to break Mars away from the other worlds." Randall nodded. He had heard of the Mass First movement. It was not very popular, even among Martians, and if not for the wealth of a few of its supporters would have died out long before. "Mungh Fahz, on the other hand, is not interested in politics," went on the girl. "He's simply a hired man. But he's been promised a bonus if he gets on the trail of that mundite, and he means to earn it." "I still don't understand how a secretary comes to be mixed up in this." "I was taken along because Duorr is one of those extremely busy men of affairs, and he has a hundred things to attend to while he's on this trip. Besides, he trusts me. He thinks I admire him." Randall looked a question. "I don't, but I keep that fact to myself. Mungh Fahz is a little uneasy about my presence, but he doesn't see what harm I can do, and for that matter, neither do I. That's why I'm allowed so much freedom of movement." Randall was beginning to feel a little better. He looked into the girl's eyes. "You haven't told me your name." "It's Marta S'un." "I'm Sam Randall. Now that we know each other, maybe you can help me get an atom-pistol." "I might. But you know that an atom-blast can't hurt a Phobian." "All the same, a weapon might come in handy." She hesitated. "I'll try to lay my hands on one. But now I'd better get back. Duorr probably has some work for me." After she had gone, Randall slowly rose to his feet. From what he had learned, it was clearer than ever that Mungh Fahz would never let him go alive. But he wasn't afraid any longer. This was no longer an affair that concerned his safety alone, and just as on the occasion when he had earned that medal, the moment he felt that other people's lives depended on him, his own life didn't count. He could look at things impersonally. Whatever mundite was, it was of sufficient importance for him to make sure that Duorr didn't lay his hands on it. He didn't see the girl again for a long time. It was the Phobian that brought him food, and Randall, despite the beating he had received from its hands, was able to regard the creature calmly. No nerves, no really vital center, no vulnerability even to an atom-blast. He wondered what he would have to do to dispose of it. Neither Duorr nor Mungh Fahz bothered to question him again. They must have decided that it would be useless. He didn't know how many days passed while he was in the narrow little room in a corner of the spaceship. But eventually, gravity began to increase again. They were approaching their destination. He could feel the slight jar as the ship landed. The gravity was a little less than that of Earth, and the slight difference gave him an illusion of great strength. That illusion disappeared quickly when he saw Mungh Fahz. The latter was accompanied by the Phobian, who would be Randall's constant attendant on Tellus-B. THERE was still a faint glow from the setting sun when he stepped out on land. The distant mountains were swathed in shadowy veils of fog, and for a moment Randall felt as if he were back on Earth again. He had seen this same landscape before, in California. The same white-clad peaks, the same tree-covered foothills, the same fleecy clouds drifting slowly before a gentle wind. Only the sun was different. It was colder, smaller, enfeebled by distance. But there was no chill in the planet's rich atmosphere. As Randall stared about him, night fell. There was little infra-red in the air, and even the Martians found it difficult to see. Duorr switched on a lamp that shed the faintest of red glows. To the Martians it spread a circle of radiance about their camp. Randall himself was still practically in the dark. He thought of the map O'Brien was supposed to have passed on to him, and chuckled. Mungh Fahz looked up sharply at the sound. "You find something amusing?" "It's a story about an Irishman. I started to tell it to the nervous gentleman who kidnaped me." "You Earth people believe that you have a sense of humor," snapped Mungh Fahz. "You will learn that it does not pay to jest. What have you seen?" "Nothing you'd be interested in—much." Duorr had approached, in what to Randall was the dark. "You may not know that this is the place where O'Brien landed on the trip when he discovered the mundite." "On the contrary, I know it even better than you do." Duorr's eyes glittered. "You fool, you have given yourself away," he spat out. "You see, Mungh Fahz? He has studied the map. He recognizes the place." "I've never seen the said map," retorted Randall blandly. There was hate in Duorr's eyes. Randall knew what was going on in the man's mind. To be so near his objective and yet so far, all because of the stubbornness of one man. Out of the darkness the Phobian approached, and Duorr looked an eager question at the leader of his hired thugs. Mungh Fahz shook his head. "There'll be time for that later," he said. "Tonight we'll get a good night's rest. Tomorrow we'll attempt to retrace O'Brien's steps." Randall went to sleep on the ground, on a carpet of soft springy, quill-like leaves that reminded him of pine needles, but were nothing of the sort. He was to learn the next day that they came not from trees, but from the grass. That night, however, he was uninterested in the flora and fauna of this strange imitation of Earth. He was more concerned with securing a good night's rest. While it was still dark, however, he felt a sharp blow in his side, and awoke. An atom-pistol had fallen beside him. He saw that the Martians had none of their infra-red lamps burning, and he hoped that the delivery of the pistol had gone unobserved, but he couldn't be sure. He thrust it under the shoulder of his shirt, where it made a not very noticeable bulge. His shirt was badly wrinkled and he knew that the slight lump near his shoulder-blade would go unobserved. Now if he could only figure out how to dispose of the Phobian. He fell asleep on that thought. When he awoke again, the miniature sun had already risen. The Martians were up, and preparing to move. They set out toward one of the mountains he had been staring at the previous evening. Now there was no mist hanging over them, and the peaks stood out very sharp and distinct. The nearest one must have been a great distance away, for an hour's walking did not bring it appreciably nearer. AFTER a time, Marta S'un moved over toward Randall. "Mind if I walk alongside you?" she asked. "Not at all." Mungh Fahz was too close by, and Randall deliberately lagged behind, so that he and the girl were soon alone—except for the Phobian, who hung on their trail with all the persistence of a single-minded robot. "You needn't mind him," she said. "He's to prevent you from escaping, but he can't understand what we say." "That thing isn't a 'he'; it's an 'it'." "It doesn't matter. For all practical purposes, we're alone." "Why?" he asked sharply. "Why doesn't Mungh Fahz mind if you talk to me?" "Because he thinks he knows what I'll say. I'm supposed to be here—well, for the purpose you thought I had in mind when I first spoke to you." Randall nodded. He still wasn't sure of her, although the atom-pistol had gone a long way toward convincing him. But he changed the subject with a certain abruptness. "What is mundite?" he asked. "It's a mineral discovered only on Tellus-B. It's supposed to be responsible for this planet's being here." "I don't understand." "Tellus-B is supposed to have come from far out in space by means of a hyper-spatial short-cut. Some sort of explosion propelled it through other dimensions, so that it cut across a great many light-years of distance in a short time. Mundite is believed necessary for that explosion. Atomic disintegration is enough to set it off." Randall's mind toyed with the thought. "And Duorr is interested in using mundite as an explosive?" "That's it," she agreed. "A mundite explosion would put an atomic bomb to shame. It would blow an entire city out of this Universe as easily as you could disintegrate a copper coin." "I gather that Duorr knows very little about mundite." "Nobody knows very much. It was first discovered by a Martian, who didn't tell a great deal of what he had found before he departed on an unintended hyperspatial journey himself. As a matter of fact, some people believe the whole thing is a hoax." "O'Brien didn't think so? He discovered a lode of the stuff?" "No one knows how." He stared at her. His expression, he knew, must have seemed unaccountable, for there was a puzzled expression on her face. Then she began to flush. "Mungh Fahz is waiting for us. He's watching." He glanced at the Martian brigand. "I suppose he wants to know how you're getting along. You may as well turn in an encouraging report." He pulled her to him, and very deliberately kissed her. She pushed him away, but she was slow in doing so. "That wasn't necessary." "It will help convince Mungh Fahz when you tell him that I know where the mundite is, and that you are soon going to find out." "You're bluffing." "I'm telling the truth. Do you want me to offer Mungh Fahz some additional evidence?" She drew away hastily. "I don't like your idea of evidence. We'd better overtake the others." That evening, when they made camp, there were intent expressions on the faces of Duorr and Mungh Fahz. Marta's report had evidently filled them with hope. Randall concealed a smile. They were going to get their information about mundite a little sooner than they expected. HE WAITED until the others were ready to go to sleep. Duorr and Mungh Fahz conferred earnestly for some time after their men had turned in. Randall could hear them even after he could no longer see them in the infra-red darkness. The Phobian was somewhere near Randall, probably staring at him unwinkingly. It was time to act—as soon as he knew exactly where that Phobian was. Randall stood up and threw a stone into the darkness. Mungh Fahz's voice rang out sharply. "What's that?" "I'm amusing myself. Do you mind?" challenged the Earthman. "Yes. You'd better stop." "I don't think so." Mungh Fahz made a series of ullulating sounds. It was his way of communicating with the Phobian. The next moment Randall heard the creature's footsteps approaching from the left. He had wanted to make sure exactly where the Phobian was, and now he knew. He aimed his atom-pistol at a piece of dry wood that he had noticed previously on the ground, and hit a corner of it. The wood burst into flame. By its light, he could see the Phobian twenty feet away, stalking him. He heard Mungh Fahz hiss. "He has an atom-pistol." "He's a fool," returned Duorr. "It won't do him any good." Randall threw a tiny pebble at the Phobian, and the latter automatically put up an arm to ward off the missile. A beam lanced out from Randall's weapon. There was the sound of an extremely weak explosion, and then—nothing. The Phobian just wasn't there any more. There was no smoke, no flame, no vapor of disintegration. The Phobian had simply disappeared, traveling to its death across unimaginable hyper-space, to end up finally in a universe thousands of light-years away. Then Randall fell flat as two atom-beams lanced out at him from the startled Martians. He had chosen his position in advance, and the rays spent their strength uselessly on the heavy rock in front. of him. The piece of dry wood was flaming brightly now, and he knew that the glare was none too good for Martian eyes. He risked putting an arm over the rock, and fired rapidly. He heard a scream from Duorr, and then a hoarse cry from Mungh Fahz. "Don't shoot! I give up!" "Walk toward the flame," ordered Randall curtly. Mungh Fahz stepped forward, with his hands in the air, blinking painfully. Randall came up in back of the man, ran a quick hand over his clothes. Then he heard a noise behind him, and dropped to the ground again. "If you value your life, you'd better tell your men to surrender." But it was none of Mungh Fahz's men. It was Marta. "Where's Duorr?" she asked quickly. "I think he's dead. You might take a look." She ran over to the place where the Martian was lying. A second later he heard her voice again. "He hasn't ... he hasn't got any. . . ." She couldn't finish. Randall had aimed for the head, and he knew that a Martian without a head was not exactly a pleasant sight. He tossed her the atom-pistol Mungh Fahz had been using. "Keep him covered while I round up the rest." "All right." He hesitated only for a second after he had left her. He could hear Mungh Fahz start to speak in a low voice, using some Martian dialect, and then shut up abruptly. A beam from the girl's atom-pistol had trimmed the bandit's hair, leaving the ends neatly singed. Randall went about his task of rounding up the remaining members of Mungh Fahz's crew without looking back to check up on Marta's ability to keep their leader under control. He found, to his surprise, that none of the crew was awake. Martians slept soundly, as a rule, and these thugs were no exception. He was able to disarm them very peacefully. AFTERWARD he bound Mungh Fahz himself, hog-tying the bandit leader so neatly that the girl gazed in admiration at the job he had done. Mungh Fahz was no light weight, but knowing that the bandit's own men would have the job of carrying him back to the space ship, Randall didn't worry about that. "It's time you got some sleep," he told Marta then. "I'll stay on guard." "I'm not sleepy. And I'd like to know how you found the mundite." "You mean that pebble I threw at the Phobian?" She nodded. "You hadn't even heard of it before you came here. How did you recognize it?" Hog-tied as he was, Mungh Fahz was listening. "I think," said Randall, "that explanations had better wait till tomorrow. Just in case our bandit friend should get ideas. And I still think you had better get some sleep." This time, somewhat to Randall's regret, she agreed. Randall stayed up alone, from time to time heaping more wood on the flame his atom-gun had kindled. By the time the first streaks of dawn were brightening the sky he had difficulty keeping his eyes open, but he noted with interest that Mungh Fahz was tied as securely as before, and somewhat more uncomfortably. He had been making futile efforts to escape, and had succeeded only in almost choking himself. At Randall's order Mungh Fahz' own men carried him back to the space ship. There were a couple of bandits on board, but after they watched Randall make a small grove of trees disappear with the aid of a pebble of mundite and an atom-gun, they were more than anxious to surrender. The Earthman stowed his prisoners, including Mungh Fahz, away in a pair of small rooms in the rear of the ship. "You won't even breathe the same air we do," Randall told them. "Your part of the ship is hermetically sealed off from mine. In case you manage to start trouble I can blast you all across hyper-space without inconveniencing myself—and it will be a pleasure to do it. So you'd better be good." He was exaggerating somewhat, he knew, when he claimed that a mundite blast wouldn't inconvenience him, but Mungh Fahz was hardly in a position to call his bluff. Randall settled down to a long and peaceful voyage back to Earth, where he could turn his prisoners over to authorities who would be pleased to take care of them. They had hardly left Tellus-B when Marta S'un resumed her questioning of the previous night. "How did you recognize the mundite?" she demanded, puzzled. Randall smiled at her. "You've got Martian eyes, haven't you, Marta?" "What has that to do with it?" "You can see very well by infra-red. You can see even better by red light. In fact, your eyes are so sensitive to red light that they're easily dazzled by it. But on the whole, I don't think they're better or worse than my own. They're simply sensitive to a different range of wavelengths." She frowned. "You mean that you can see colors that I can't?" "Exactly. I can perceive violet, which is invisible to you. Ordinarily, that leaves you with the advantage, because in the so-called dark, infra-red light is common, whereas violet light is rare. You can see where everything is dark to me, and I can't see at all where it's dark to you. "However, there are exceptions. Wherever you run across mundite, you'll find one of those exceptions. The stuff happens to have a violet phosphorescence." "But Duorr and Mungh Fahz could have used their instruments—" "They didn't realize the possibility. The first man to discover mundite was a Martian, and before he could learn of the violet glow, he was killed. Then along came O'Brien. He just happened to stay on Tellus-B overnight in the dark, in what I imagine is the one region where mundite is abundant. The violet glow hit him in the eyes. The discovery was as easy as that. "O'Brien knew that no Martian could see what he himself had seen. And he wasn't afraid of the secret in the hands of an Earthman. That's why he didn't need a map. He simply drew glowing violet arrows pointing to the hills where the mundite deposits were richest, and added a few simple instructions. He scratched these arrows across several rocks with mundite pebbles. I saw them the night we landed. Naturally, Duorr and Mungh Fahz, who couldn't see them, had their suspicions of me confirmed when I told them I knew O'Brien had been there." "So that's it. And I used to be contemptuous of people with Earth eyes." "Have you realized," asked Randall irrelevantly, "that your late employer is deceased, and that you are out of a job, with no chance of getting a reference for the next one?" "No, I haven't." "In your place, there's just one thing a girl could do. That is, if there was somebody like me around, somebody who was crazy about her and wanted to marry her. I mean, you—" "This," she complained, "is getting to be confusing." "I can make it clear by kissing her—I mean, you," said Randall. And he did. FORGOTTEN DANGER BY WILLIAM MORRISON ILLUSTRATED BY FREAS Crusoe could remember only one thing—that somewhere near some deadly danger threatened him! He had no way of knowing what it was, or why he was in the swamp. Then he found he could work miracles! He had a feeling that there was something he had to remember, something urgent, something that had to do with danger. But it was hard to think of it, it was hard to think at all. There was a dullness in his head as if he had been too long asleep. And now that he had awakened at last, he did not know for the moment where he was. He would realize, of course, once he shook himself and straightened out his mind. But so far he did not know. Nothing was familiar. It was dark, and in the background he saw the silhouettes of bushes, a bridge, trees. Closer at hand there was a fire over which a large pot was boiling. Around the fire were four men in ragged clothes. As the firelight flickered over their faces, casting weird lights upon the battered features, he studied them carefully. He knew none of them. One was a big subtly misshapen bull of a man with a three days' beard. There was power in the set of his shoulders, in his easy slouch as, with narrowed eyes, he stirred the contents of the pot. Another was small, with a pointed beard and a shining bald head. The first one, he gathered from their conversation, was called Angel, the second, Professor. The other two were of more moderate size. He saw that their faces assumed strange colors in the light of the leaping flames. He could not, no matter how hard he tried, gather what their names were. But, he knew that names didn't matter. The thing that mattered was the danger that somehow threatened and that he couldn't remember. Angel lifted something out of the pot with a long spoon, said curtly, "Stuff's ready," and began to ladle out the steaming mixture. The men moved toward him with their large tin cups, and then moved back to eat. The largest portion of all Angel kept for himself. The next largest he brought to the sitting man, stumbling as he did so over a root that tangled his shoe. But he caught himself before he had spilled the contents of the cup and said, "Here y'are, Crusoe." Crusoe. A strange name. Not his at all. But he said automatically, "Thank you." Angel had lifted a spoonful of the stew to his own mouth. Now he gulped it down hastily and said, "Hey fellows, he sounds like he came out of it." The other men gathered around him. Professor, staring with sharp eyes, asked, "Do you recall your real name now?" He shook his head. "I don't remember a thing. How did I get here ?" "You don't remember that?" He said with irritation, "I have just told you so." "Don't get huffy, chum," said Angel. "I been feedin' you and takin' care of you and your pal for two weeks. And you don't know a thing about it, huh?" "I recall nothing. Except that there is danger." "The railroad bulls who chased us," said one of the other men. "He remembers them." "Bulls? No, it is something more than that." "What about it, Professor? asked Angel. "Think he'll snap out of it so he really remembers?" "I certainly hope so," returned the little bald man. "When I first found him, wandering around near the swamp, he seemed to be in a complete coma. Then, after a few days of rest, he seemed to realize dimly what was going on around him. But from day to day he remembered nothing. Perhaps the events are not completely forgotten, perhaps they reside in his subconscious, ready to be called to mind again upon proper occasion. However, so far there is no evidence on this point." "But he's gettin' better all the time," said Angel defensively. "Yes, that is the thing that indicates there is hope. From now on I think that he will consciously remember all that happens. And perhaps, in time, he will recall who he really is. In the meantime, of course, he is like a shipwrecked mariner discovering an entirely strange land. That is why I have named him Crusoe." He smiled wistfully. "Perhaps he is more fortunate than he seems. I would give much for his ability to forget." "Stop harpin' on it, Professor. It happened long ago." "But I still remember it as keenly as if it had happened yesterday. Strange, all the whiskey and gin I have drunk have not dulled my memory in the least. I was very successful in my profession, gentlemen. I was already an Associate Professor of English Literature, a recognized authority on the novel. I had a great career ahead of me. And then, one day, coming home from a Christmas party with my wife, my car skidded on the ice—" Angel's heavy hand fell across his shoulder. "It's okay, Professor, don't talk about it no more. I know where I can pick up some rotgut tomorrow night, and you'll celebrate and forget all about it." Crusoe listened with interest. He had a vague memory of having heard Professor's story about his wife's death before, as if the man had told it to others before they had met Angel and the latter's friends. But it was so vague that he could hardly be sure it was a memory at all. And meanwhile the feeling of danger persisted. He had to do something, do it rapidly. But what? He felt the anger of frustration, an anger that made him tense and irritable. He ate his stew in silence, aware of its strong and slightly unpleasant taste. He had a feeling as if he were used to better food—and yet he must have been eating the stew all along for the past weeks. The fire was dying down, and several of the other men talked in low voices to each other. He heard Angel: "And so this cop says to me, 'Move on, ya funny lookin' bum—' " And then, the rough voice rose in amusement. "I give him a airplane whirl and toss him over the bridge. And then he comes up, coughin' up water, and says, `Now I remember when I seen you before. You was the Destroyin' Angel. You used to wrestle with The Masked McGinty!' " Angel had been a wrestler, Professor a student of literature. If he asked the other men what they had been, they would doubtless know. What had he himself been? Again his mind seemed blank. He sat there sullenly, staring at his empty cup, and wondered if there were any torture greater than that of not being able to remember something that insistently demanded to be remembered. Soon the conversations died down. The men settled themselves on the dry grass, pulled their old worn apologies for blankets over them, and began to snore. Around them, as the fire was reduced to embers, the night closed in. Crusoe could hear the chirping of crickets and the quiet flow of water under the bridge. A crackling shower of sparks spurted unexpectedly from the still glowing coals. He couldn't sleep. He had slept enough during the past weeks. Now he had to awaken fully, to realize what he must do next. But first he must recall what had happened. Where had the Professor met him? He had been wandering around near a swamp. Now, what on earth had he been doing near a swamp? The night passed slowly as he tried to track down the thoughts which kept eluding him. Even the chirping of the crickets died away, and at last there was only the ripple of the water. Then, after a time, he became aware of new sounds. The crunching of twigs under foot, the creak of shoes on the ground. People were approaching. He sat up suddenly, as if he had recognized that this was the danger he had feared. "Angel!" he called. The ex-wrestler awoke, and the Professor with him. "Could be cops," whispered Angel hoarsely. "Some farmer loses a chicken, and they think of us. We better get goin'." He rose quietly and led the way in the direction opposite the approaching sounds. Crusoe could hear the heavy breathing of the other men, almost as if they were continuing to snore even though they were now awake. They were on the alert, but not seriously alarmed. No, this wasn't the danger he had to fear. This was a mere trifle. The real danger was deep, hidden— Some one stumbled loudly. A voice came out of the darkness. "Hey, you— stop!" "Better start runnin'," muttered Angel, and lumbered forward. He tripped over something and cursed, but kept on going. It was growing lighter now, and Crusoe found it easier to see. In front of him the ground rose gently toward the top of a low hill. And halfway up the slope stood two men, armed with rifles. They lifted the rifles and one of them said harshly, "Hold it, you bums." Their retreat was cut off. Angel came to a stop, the others near him, the slower and slighter Professor bringing up the rear. Without thinking, Crusoe raised his arm, and just as if his hand held a weapon, he pointed at the two men with their rifles. The rifles exploded. They flew apart into countless fragments, and as if by magic, blood appeared on the faces of the two men. Angel grasped the situation instantly. He said, "Come on, fellows," and rushed forward again. But the two men collapsed before he reached them. From behind them came angry yells as the first group realized that the trap had failed. Angel chuckled. "They thought they had us," he said. "When they see what happened to those two guys, they won't be in such a hurry to get close to us again." "What did happen?" asked one of the men. He gestured with reluctance at Crusoe. "This guy just pointed his hand—" Angel whirled around. "Him? I thought somebody in back of me threw a grenade. I wasn't askin' who done it—" "Nobody threw no grenade. He just pointed at them." "Just with his finger? And them rifles exploded? It ain't possible!" They surrounded Crusoe and stared at him with fear-filled eyes. "How did you do it, pal?" He shook his head. "I don't know. I just felt as if a weapon belonged in my hand, as if all I had to do was point. it. So I did. And the rifles exploded." "Point at a tree." He pointed at a tree. Nothing happened. Angel bounced his hand against his ear, as if trying to shake loose some water that hampered his hearing. He looked uneasy and bewildered. "Somethin's screwy, but we can't stop to figure it now. We gotta keep goin'." The pursuers were being, more cautious now, and after a time Crusoe realized that the acuteness of the danger had passed. They all stopped to rest. The other two men, however, paused only briefly. One of them said, "So long, chum. We better split up here. We're gonna catch a freight goin' north." They seemed anxious to part from Angel and his friends. Crusoe watched them go without regret. They were odd-looking men, and he had not enjoyed their company. Moreover, he had a feeling that they had nothing to do with the danger the thought of which made him uneasy. Professor, now—Professor had a little more to do with it. Angel's ponderous mind had returned to the subject of their mysterious escape. He said, "Look, Crusoe, how'd ya do it? You can come clean with us. We won't spill it to nobody." Crusoe said, "I haven't the slightest idea. As I told you, all I did was point." "Any more tricks you know how to pull?" "How do I know? I didn't even suspect that I could perform this one.," "I suppose, said the Professor, "that the reflexes, which existed long before there was a conscious mind, can continue to persist even after the Mind has been seriously injured. You must have been in the habit of using some weapon—" "A weapon ? You mean that I was a soldier? Then what am I doing out of uniform?" "I hardly know," said the Professor slowly. "When I first met you, near the swamp, you were wearing nothing. Your body was dirty and slightly burnt, as if from some explosion. There was not a shred of clothes to give a clue to what you had been. Those you are now wearing, including your overalls, I ah—borrowed from a clothesline." "But there may be traces of my own clothes back in that swamp." "They will be hard to find. Swamps have a habit of swallowing what is left in them." "But there must be something there. How did I get to the swamp in the first place? And what sort of explosion tore my clothes from me?" "A plane," said Angel suddenly. "Maybe you were in a crash. I remember that a coupla months ago some farmers had a story about a plane explodin' in the sky. Maybe that was the one." "If I was in a plane, the wreckage must still be in the swamp." And there too must be where the danger lay. "I'm going back there," he said with sudden determination. "I'll go with you, of course," said the Professor. "As the first one to come across you in your helpless condition, I feel a certain responsibility for you." Angel grinned. "I feel the same way about you, Professor. I guess I been feelin' like that ever since I found you gettin' pushed around by Monk Cromo. Monk's about my size," he explained to Crusoe. "And he useta be a fighter. He thought he had only Professor to handle. He found he had me. And ya know, pal, that a good wrestler will take a fighter any old time." "How long ago was that?" asked Professor. "It seems like ages." "Five, six years. But you know somethin', pal, you ain't as helpless as you used to be. That's what comes of havin' a head on you. You learn how to get along, no matter where you are." "I regard that as a compliment, Angel," smiled the little man. "Now, shall we start?" Toward the danger that Crusoe felt awaited them in the swamp they could travel but slowly. They had to go by foot, on dusty narrow roads. There was no hope of getting a lift from passing cars. One look at the three of them, and the average driver stepped on the gas and raced away. Farmers set their dogs on them, and only the sight of Angel's grim face and the strength of Angel's powerful muscles kept them from being torn by the hounds and beaten by their masters. Everything that happened now Crusoe remembered perfectly. His mind could go back a day, two days, with no trouble at all. It was only when it reached that moment when he had become aware of his surroundings at the fire that his memory stopped short, with terrifying abruptness. Beyond that it couldn't go. What had he done before then? As they made their way toward the swamp, he became aware of something else. The people here looked strange. Come to think of it, those two tramps who had been with them earlier had looked strange in the same way. And the farmers spoke in peculiar fashion, with an accent that grated slightly on his ear. Queer, he thought, that people who had lived here all their lives should seem so out of place and learn their own language so improperly. Once, when Angel was foraging for food, a big dangerous-looking dog came barking at Crusoe and Professor. This was a barking dog that had never heard that it was not supposed to bite. Crusoe liked neither the vicious glint in its eyes nor the cruel look of its teeth. As the beast made a sudden lunge at them, he snapped his fingers sharply and said, "Scar!" The animal came to a halt, as if puzzled. Professor laughed. "I don't think that's its name," he said, and stooped to pick up a heavy rock that might serve as a missile. The dog promptly scurried away as fast as its legs would take it. " 'Scar' isn't a name," said Crusoe thoughtfully. "I have the feeling that it's a command. When accompanied by a snap of the fingers, it tells the animal to go back to its corner." "That's interesting. So you're actually beginning to recall things." "Not exactly. I'm still responding almost automatically, at little beyond the reflex level. Before I snapped my fingers I didn't know that I was going to snap them. Nor did I realize that I knew the word." "But at least you've made a beginning," said Professor happily. "Soon you'll be recalling the past with furl consciousness." When Angel rejoined them, he was in proud possession of a tough but edible chicken. Crusoe and Professor congratulated him, and later they cooked the chicken and devoured it. It struck Crusoe that the taste of the chicken too was strange. Or was it rather that the chicken was quite ordinary, and that his own sense of taste was what was unusual? That must have been it, he thought. The feeling that food tasted good or bad also depended upon a kind of reflex memory, a memory that was making itself felt more and more. The evening of that same day they camped in an open stubble-covered field. As it grew dark, Angel began to talk of his past career, of his triumphs as a wrestler, of his one great adventure in Hollywood to make a picture. He had been the comic relief, a foil to the handsome hero. Crusoe had no reason to doubt what he said, but all the same he found Angel's adventures incredible. The life that the ex-wrestler described was mad, completely absurd. He couldn't imagine himself living it. He stared up at the sky, and realized that this too didn't look "normal." It wasn't, it couldn't be, the sky under which he had lived for most of his life. And the idea of living under a different sky didn't surprise him. It was an idea to which he must long have been accustomed. Two days later they reached the edge of the swamp. "I found you near here," said the Professor. He waved his arm vaguely. "You were wandering around, covered with mud." It didn't look familiar. Nor did it look as dangerous as he had expected it to look. He asked, "Why did we leave this neighborhood? Why didn't we stay and look for the plane that had crashed?" "For one reason," said the Professor gently. "Because at the time I didn't realize that there had been a plane. For another, because we were—shall I say, not popular?" "Why? Why weren't we?" A chuckle from Angel interrupted him. "People don't like to lose chickens." "I see." "Nor clothes," added the Professor. "Remember that I supplied you with garments that were hanging on a clothesline. Perhaps I should have mentioned that the farmer's wife who discovered her loss tried to extract payment from me by means of a shotgun." Crusoe nodded slowly. "By now, you assume, the memory of the loss will have grown faint?" "I hope so. We shall, of course, do our best not to attract attention." They moved into the swamp. It was gloomy, but not, thought Crusoe, frightening. There must have been no more than light rains during the past weeks, for at first they found it possible to walk along dry paths, and here and there were pools of mud where ordinarily there must have been water. But as they penetrated further in, the mud became more liquid. The leaves of the trees overhead shut out most of the light, and they walked over soft carpets of moss and decaying leaves. The odor too became unpleasant, the odor of mud flats and stagnant water, of small dead animals and impure, stinking marsh gas. "Where are we headed for?" said Angel uneasily. "This is kind of dark—" "Not too dark to see," said Crusoe. "But I perceive no signs of there having been a crash." "Nor do I," agreed the Professor. "However, the swamp covers an area of roughly twenty square miles. It will take us a considerable time to explore it all." And in those twenty square miles was the danger which he had felt hanging over him. He suddenly began to wonder what he would find. A crashed plane? No, it would be more than that. A crashed plane wouldn't explain why the people acted and talked so queerly, why the food didn't taste right, nor the sky look right. The following day Angel stumbled over a half-hidden log and almost stepped into a trap. As the steel jaws snapped on the log instead of on his foot, Crusoe thought of another trap, a trap not of steel, but more relentless, one that gripped more firmly than this ever would. Had it shut recently, or was it going to shut? Angel's cursing distracted him from his thoughts. Professor said mildly, "Don't use such language, Angel. After all, you have escaped. And here's another trap—with something in it." Angel's eyes glittered. "It's a 'possum. They're good eatin'." He began to laugh. "Say, won't this guy be sore when he finds two traps sprung, and nothin' in them!" But later that day, when they saw the trapper, it seemed less like a laughing matter. The man carried a rifle, and as Angel made an incautious noise, he swung around, rifle butt to his shoulder. Angel dropped just as the bullet cut through the leaves near where his head had been. And then the trapper's rifle exploded, just as the other rifles had done. The trapper stared at what was left of his weapon in his hand and then turned and ran. Angel said, "You pointed your finger again!" "No," said Crusoe. "Not this time. I just started to point." "Maybe it's just the thinkin' about it that does it. Maybe you can do things by thinkin'." "That's absurd." "I wonder," said the Professor. "The swamp ahead of us is particularly nasty. We'll have to wade through water and mud at least to our waists. And when I remember how muddy you were when I found you, I have a feeling that you must have wandered through here. Now if we could only dry up the swamp—" "They tried to do it once," said Angel. "It can't be done." "But suppose Crusoe were to point his finger at it and think: 'Swamp, dry up.' I wonder what would happen." They were both staring at Crusoe now, and he said, "Nothing would happen." "You can't tell," said Angel. "Maybe Professor's right. Maybe it would dry up. Try it and see." "I refuse to make a fool of myself." "The foolish thing," remarked the Professor, "is not to try." "Yeah, that trapper will be comin' back after awhile, with his pals. He'll keep us from goin' back the way we came. We'll have to go ahead. And I hate to get all muddy. Come on, pal, just point your finger and think the magic words." He did feel like a fool, and if the other two had seemed at all skeptical, he would never have dared do it. Nevertheless, there did seem to be nothing to lose. He pointed his finger at the dark and muddy water, at the tangle of fallen trees and rotting water lilies, and concentrated. "Think hard," urged the Professor. He thought hard and forgot that they were there. Suddenly, a sheet of blinding flame swept over the swamp. He heard Angel cry out, and covered his own eyes. When the flame had passed, the water was gone, and with it the tangle of fallen vegetation. Before them lay a bed of hard dry clay. "You did it," said Angel in awe. "I didn't," he replied angrily. "You just can't do things like that by thinking." "I know I can't," said Angel. "But you can. It's magic." The Professor smiled. "Let's not worry what it is. The main thing is that the swamp ahead of us is now dry, and we can go ahead." They went ahead. And a quarter mile ahead of them they found the ship. It had been easier to locate than he had thought it would be. And once he saw the ship, a feeling of recognition swept over him. Angel had halted and was saying in awe, "This ain't no plane." It wasn't. It had been constructed to do more than skim the surface of a planet. It had been built to bridge the gap from one planet to the next, from one star to the next. Only fifty feet long, it was a thing of strength and beauty, with a dull smooth finish that could slip through an atmosphere with a minimum of friction. He was beginning to remember a great deal now. The entrance, he knew, was near the nose. The door closed tight after you went through it, leaving an apparently unbroken surface of metal, but if you came over to it and put your hand on a certain plate— He came over to it and hesitated. The Professor asked eagerly, "Is this—is it a spaceship?" "Yes. This is the door, over here. I must have crashed in the swamp and for some reason staggered out." "But how—how does it work?" "Like this." He raised his hand to the plate, and suddenly the sense of danger swept over him again. And now he knew where it came from. Not from the ship itself. No, not from the ship. But from the Professor, the gentle little man who had been protecting him. He swung around and saw that the little man's forehead was beady with sweat. The man had been tense, hoping that he would open the door without remembering too much. The hope had failed. His memory had been coming back gradually in the past few days. Now the sight of the ship had brought back everything. Everything. He caught sight of the glint of metal in the Professor's hand. "I thought so," he said. "I thought so." Angel's lower jaw had dropped. He stammered, "What is this? Professor, that ain't a gun, is it?" "Much more than a gun," said Crusoe softly. "That's the magic. When I pointed with my hand, without thinking, it was because I was accustomed to having a weapon like that. But it was the Professor who actually had it. It was he who made those rifles explode. And because he didn't want any one to suspect that he had such a thing on him, he let me have the credit." "It will do you no good to remember," said the Professor. "In the long run it will do you no good." "I wonder. You can cover a great surface with a sheet of flame by using that thing, you can kill with it, but you can't make me do what you want. Not now, not after I've remembered who you are." "Look," said Angel, "I don't get this. I know the Professor for five, six years." "Not this one," replied Crusoe. "Perhaps the original Professor did find me wandering around alone. But then my friend here came searching for me, and after studying his characteristics for a time, killed him and took his place. He's a great mimic, is my friend. That, in fact, is why I was sent to get him, and was bringing him, a prisoner, back to his home planet. He's mimicked all sorts of people, even those who have only the slightest resemblance to humanoids. It was nothing at all for him to become a Professor. Physically, of course, he probably doesn't fit the part too well. Do you mean to say that you haven't noticed?" The Professor laughed gently. "Angel wouldn't notice. Haven't you realized yet that he's half blind? He stumbles, blunders into things. He can't see well. He didn't notice the difference. Not when I acted so well." Angel sought escape from confusion in a fact he could understand. He said pathetically, "You killed the real Professor? He was a guy who wouldn't have hurt anybody. You killed him?" "Of course. I've killed much better and more important people than he would ever be." "He's right, Angel, he's an experienced killer. But all his killing won't help him now. He needs me to open and operate the ship. And I'm not cooperating." Angel held fast to what he could understand. He muttered to himself, "The dirty killer. The rat." The little man ignored him. He said, "You were very wise, Tlaxon—you remember your name now?—you were very wise, when you saw that a crash threatened, to lock the ship's machinery so that only your own personal characteristic motions would open it again. That was too much, for even me to mimic. Your cleverness left me helpless to escape from the planet without you. After we finally crashed, and I recovered from the shock, I examined the ship's machinery. There seemed to be no serious damage. But I couldn't operate it. I needed your help. And you were unconscious. Sitting at the controls, you had received a much more severe shock than I had. You didn't recover for many hours. And after you did, you remembered nothing. You were still unable to be of use to me. "I was enraged, but there was nothing I could do. I tried to keep you in the ship, but once, while I was asleep, you awoke and stumbled out. I had no choice then but to follow you in order to protect you. The ship locked automatically behind me, leaving me worse off than ever. But I had to follow because my escape depended on your own. It was then that Professor discovered you and I discovered him. I had to kill him. I think you can see why." "Yes, I see now." "Once our return to the ship was blocked off, we had to hide. I had to discard our old clothes and steal clothes that would be less conspicuous. As it was, we ourselves were conspicuous enough. In the world of ordinary men, we would have been subject to immediate investigation. It was only among such outcasts as Angel and his friends that we could to some extent pass ourselves off as natives. When they met us, the others thought that Angel had at last found friends of his own kind. Angel, of course, thought he had found the Professor. He was overjoyed to see me, and his enthusiasm was our passport. Moreover, on their world, it was not customary to ask questions that a man was not inclined to answer. There were too many embarrassing secrets on all sides. "I was continually on tenterhooks with regard to you. I was hoping that you would remember enough to help operate the ship and escape from the planet, but not enough to recall who I was. Meanwhile, I watched with interest how even in your amnesiac state you absorbed the English language. With our people, Tlaxon, language learning is much more of a reflex process than it is with these Earthlanders. You learned without knowing that you were doing so. All the same, your racial peculiarities prevented you from speaking exactly as the natives do." "That's why I thought that they were the ones who spoke strangely. All but Angel." "Yes, he has the same difficulties with dentate sounds like t's and d's that we do. Strange how much he resembles us physically too. It helped people to think of us as three freaks of a kind. Mentally, of course, there's all the difference in the world." "Is there? I wonder if he isn't basically sound. I wonder how well he'd do if he weren't made to feel like a freak, if he were given a chance in our own System." The smaller man's lips curled in a sneer. "Perhaps an inferior creature like him would fit in. I'm afraid I never will. I'll tell you what I'll do, Tlaxon. Once we take off from this planet I'll let you put me down in one of three places where I have friends. I'll give you your choice and promise you that no harm will come to you." "The rat," muttered Angel hoarsely. "Look, Crusoe, I don't understand everything you fellows said. But I remember the Professor, the real Professor. He had a big head, just like me. He used to say, a wrestler could be a highbrow too." "A high forehead, such as our own. Yes," agreed the little man. "He had." "And he didn't make fun of me because my face was kinda blue. Other people used to look at me like I was a freak. They didn't realize that after I stopped wrestlin' I had to go to work in some factory where the silver chemicals turned my skin- blue. They just thought I was born that way." "We were born that way," said Crusoe gently: "Can't you tell? Or are your eyes so very bad? That's one reason we would have been so conspicuous without you. That's why the people looked so strange to me. Not merely because most of them had low foreheads. But because none of them were blue. Pink and brown and white, and red and yellow and black, but no blue. I began to think of them all as freaks." "You are as big a freak as any," interrupted the Professor. "I am giving you a chance for your life. And you prefer to discuss irrelevancies." Crusoe shook his head. "Your offer is rejected. Whatever happens to me, I do not intend to help you escape." "No? You have no choice, friend Tlaxon. I am tired of caring for you like a baby. Either you accept my offer now or I withdraw it for a worse one. And I think I know of ways to make you do as I wish." It was Crusoe's turn to perspire. He was quite aware that the other man knew of, many painful ways. But he knew too that if he accepted the original offer, the murderous little man would break his promise and murder him the moment the ship's controls were freed of their responsiveness to the characteristics of one man. While Crusoe hesitated, the sharp crack of a rifle broke the silence. Angel winced and pressed his hand to his right shoulder. A red stain spread under his fingers. Half a dozen men with rifles were advancing across the burned out area of the swamp. "Attracted by the flame," muttered the Professor. "The fools." He swung around to cover them with his weapon, keeping one eye on Crusoe. He had written off Angel because of the latter's wound. He should have remembered the man's tremendous vitality. Just as the weapon went off, Angel's left hand swung out and caught him under the jaw. A sheet of flame appeared at treetop level and then died out. The weapon fell to the ground and Crusoe picked it up. The rifles exploded. The next moment the door in the ship's surface had swung silently open Crusoe leaped in. "So long, pal," said Angel huskily. "This rat killed Professor. I'm goin' to make sure that he gets his." Crusoe shook his head, remembering all the times the big man had befriended him before. "Those men will punish him. You come in here." "Huh?" said Angel foolishly. "Your one real friend is dead. Do you want to be regarded by the others as a freak all the rest of your life? Come with me. I'm expected back with a prisoner. They'll be glad to get you instead. You'll be made over, given a new life. You'll still be blue, of course—but so will everyone else. As for him, he's past making over. He doesn't deserve to be treated as we treat most of our prisoners. I'll leave him to your race and he'll probably be punished for killing the real Professor. Even if the only thing that happens to him is to remain on Earth and have no way of getting back to his own planet, that will be punishment enough. You needn't worry about his getting his." Angel moved slowly through the doorway. The metal clanged shut behind him. The motor purred and the ship began to vibrate so smoothly that Crusoe could hardly feel it. All was well, he realized; the motor was unharmed by the crash. For which they were thankful. The ship roared into the air. As the forgotten little man, who had been the danger, screamed unheard, they headed for the nearest star and home—for both of them. Memoir by William Morrison When Horace L. Gold became editor of Galaxy more than a quarter of a century ago, he gave new vigor to a growing trend in science fiction—the creation of characters, human and alien, with a fair share of human nature. Monsters were supposed to have plausible characters, too. But Horace, the writers, who were finding that sf was an honorable form of literature, and the readers, whose tastes were becoming increasingly sophisticated, were not satisfied. And thus were the naive bug-eyed monsters of more innocent days routed by men and monsters whose attributes and understanding were discussed in terms associated, during those years, with psychoanalysis. Horace was, of course, too good an editor to fall easy victim to extremist notions he encountered in the manuscripts that passed across his desk. Despite his own interest in psychoanalysis, it was the story that mattered. As a professional scientist, I was fascinated and frequently disturbed by the implications of the work going on in the burgeoning field of human and animal behavior modification, which Pavlov had begun in the early years of our century. And so it seemed quite natural to me to extend that interest in the subject to an extraterrestrial being, and how it was affected by its enforced, painfully imposed modified behavior. The situation had elements of pathos, as well as comedy, as the monster related to humans beings, whose behavior had not been modified. "The Model of a Judge" was the result. It pleased both Horace and me.